


Closer

by spanglecap



Series: Affinity [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist!Steve, Babies, Bucky Barnes Feels, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Confessions, Drabble, Established Relationship, F/M, FWP, Feels, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Graphic Violence, Natasha's sexuality is Steve on a bike, Pregnancy complications, Protective!Steve, Size Kink, Unplanned Pregnancy, all the feels, author is a sap, battle trauma, bike porn, body painting, couples who don't know how to communicate, discussion of possible abortion, figuring out feelings, mental relapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3163322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spanglecap/pseuds/spanglecap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Sequel to "Close", but can be read alone too)<br/>A series of interconnecting one shots forming a larger, cohesive narrative.</p><p>Ch. 1 - Natasha has always thought Steve seems impossibly large in his uniform.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> First of all, I'd like to say thanks for clicking on his story and reading :)
> 
> This story will the the sequel to "Close", which you have perhaps read. If not, this can be read as a stand alone story too.  
> Basically I kind of missed writing that version of Steve & Nat, and was tempted by the idea of revisiting them. After someone (I'm looking at you, Yvonne!) mentioned in the comments on another story that they would also like to see more of them too, I decided to just go for it. :) After all, Close started out as a one shot and that tuned out okay!
> 
> I'm aiming for the format to be the same as Close, several interconnecting oneshots to allow for some kind of continuity and maybe a larger story. As I haven't written any other chapters yet, we'll just have to see what happens! :)
> 
> So let's check up on Steve & Nat!

Natasha has always thought Steve seems impossibly large in his uniform.

Not quite as physically big as Thor, but somehow his presence seems to radiate and surround her. He doesn’t even have to touch her, doesn’t always have to be close by. Sometimes it feels like all he has to do is be in the same room and it feels like heavy weight pressing down on her.

She kind of likes it.

Okay, more than just likes it.

Secretly at least.

She keeps it secret, because she would never let anyone know that the Black Widow’s heart flutters when Steve pulls her into an embrace, or when they duck behind his shield, all that strength wrapped around her. Or that she feels light headed when they spar, when she lets the bulk of him pin her down on the matt – he’s never bested Natasha without her letting him do so – his solid weight settled between her thighs. That when they’re alone in the back of a jet on the way to a drop point, she’ll curl herself under his arm and brush her lips against that gap between his suit and his jaw, letting his warmth envelop her completely.

But she likes it best when they’re lying in bed together, because if she thought he was big  _in_  the uniform then it’s nothing compared to how he feels  _out_  of it.

Like now.

The man is like a mountain range, the dips and curves of his muscles like ridges and valleys, half cast into shadow as pale sunlight spills through the window. She’s still not used to waking up like this; opening her eyes seeing him before anything else, but she doesn’t think she’ll ever bore of it. It still feels  _new_ , stills feels exciting and unfamiliar and it's a little bit alarming that she finds herself wanting to get used to it. Natasha has never been one to settle into routine (thank god), but there's  _something_  about the way he looks at her when he wakes that's always the same, unchanging like the ground beneath her feet and recently she's noticed that Clint calls her grumpy on the days when she's forced to wake without Steve's arms wrapped around her.

But today isn't one of those days. She reaches out to him, pushes his hair back from his forehead and he stirs slightly, the movement pulling him from slumber. He rolls onto his back with a grumble and throws an arm over his eyes, and it’s like a landslide, the way his muscles roll and stretch.

“Morning,” he mumbles sleepily, voice a little gruff. A swathe of stubble is starting to darken his jaw slightly and his blonde hair is still a bit of a mess, but she likes it that way. His arm flops down to rest over his stomach and she can’t stop the swell in her chest when he gives her one of those dopey half smiles of his.

“Morning,” she replies, and he smiles wider.

He leans over to bracket her in against the pillows, dips his head down to kiss her. There’s just so  _much_  of him, heavy and dense and acres of skin and muscle above her. Natasha’s head spins.

Those large hands of his move over the skin of her hips, her ribcage, softly, but there’s a gentle firmness to his touch that makes her ache for more at the thought of all that strength under the surface. His lips ghost over her neck and she shivers, arching against him as teeth scrape against flesh.

“You always taste so good,” he hums, pulling back to look at her with something like wonderment in his eyes. He brings one hand up to her neck, thumb resting against her jaw and kisses her again, deep this time, coaxing her mouth open so he can taste her moans too.

“So do you,” she murmurs, swinging one leg over his hips. It’s somewhat satisfying to have him roll onto his back for her with just a small push on his shoulder, that the weight of him, so solid and unyielding in the field, moves so easily for her. She takes her time mapping out the expanse of his skin with her lips and hands, working her way down his body from neck to navel, tasting every inch until his chest is heaving. A broken groan rumbles through him, an earthquake which she feels more than hears as she traces the v of his hips lightly with her nails.

It’s perfect, everything is perfect, until a shrill siren cuts through the pleasant haze that fills the room. The siren that tells them they have to get out of bed and assemble and go save the world or whatever. Frankly, Natasha couldn’t care less right now. Steve though, apparently does care.

“Duty calls,” he sighs wistfully, sitting up and rolling her off him to one side. 

“Duty can wait,” Natasha says, pulling him back down to lay next to her. “We’ll pretend we didn’t hear it.”

“Nat," he says against her lips. "It's impossible not to hear it,” he manages to say between kisses, moving as if to pull away but the way he grips her body tightly makes it seem like it's a huge effort to do so. "People need us," he breathes after a moment, and his words are heavy. Natasha gives in. As much as she’d like to stay in bed, he’s right. They need to go. God knows the world can’t be trusted to save itself.

“You and your damn duty,” Natasha huffs out, pushing him away. He plants his lips to her knuckles, but the sweet, innocent nature of the gesture is cancelled out by the mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Later,” he says, a promise. A throb of want goes through her. He stands up.

Their uniforms are still scattered about the floor, having only just got back from a mission last night. They hadn’t even bothered to clear them away before stumbling into the shower to wash away the battle, the need to find shelter in each other’s arms too great.

Natasha watches for a moment as Steve grabs some boxers and pulls them on. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over that shoulder to waist ratio. There are still marks on his back from her nails last night. Fading now, but there. He picks up his trousers and tosses her cat suit to her with a grin. She glares back at him and slips into it begrudgingly.

* * *

 

They’re stepping into a jet no less than six minutes later. Thor is off world and Bruce is in Malaysia, but Sam flies past them to get a head start, slicing through the air like a blade.

“Let’s wrap this up quick,  _some_  of us had plans today,” Natasha says sharply as she strides past Stark on the flight deck, not even sparing him a glance. Steve isn’t far behind her, pausing as he puts an earpiece in.

“Jeez, what’s got Red’s panties in a twist?” Tony says, flipping his helmet down. Steve hauls himself onto the jet as it begins to take off, hovering a couple of feet about the ground. He grins to himself, and tries to phrase it as delicately as he can, because he’s a gentleman after all.

“I think Nat said she wanted to sleep in this morning,” he calls to Stark over the sound of the engine.

“Well I hate to break it to her, Cap, but saving the world isn’t a nine-to-five job,” Stark quips as he rockets away, following Sam. Steve shakes his head and strides over to the cockpit of the jet where Clint and Natasha sit.

“What are you smiling at?” Natasha asks, eyeing him suspiciously from the co-pilot seat.

“Nothing,” he says, and leans down between the two seats to kiss the top of her head briefly. She doesn’t react, just carries on pushing buttons and flicking switches. Steve doesn’t mind. He’s just happy he can get away with small gestures of affection in front of Clint, because the others don't know about them yet. Sometimes it takes all his strength not to lean over and kiss her in front of the rest of the team or say something that will give them away, so it's nice to not have to worry about that kind of thing happening around Clint. But he'll wait until Natasha is ready to tell the other members of the team, no matter how long that takes.

“If you two love birds are finished...” Clint drawls at his other side, flicking a switch above his head.

“For now,” Steve muses aloud, and retreats into the back of the jet. Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Then let’s go get these sons of bitches.”

The jet’s engine rumbles, and Natasha braces herself against the seat so she doesn’t get whiplash.

Well. She supposes there is  _one_  good thing about getting called out again.

She's rather fond of Steve in his uniform.

And the fact that she’ll get to take it off him again when they get back helps too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I'm not sure how often I will be able to update this with the other writing I have planned and a somewhat busier life than usual but I'm hoping it won't be too long between updates :)
> 
> Comments & kudos always appreciated!  
> If you have any prompts for this story (as I haven't decided where it's going yet) feel free to leave them here or on tumblr  
> http://spanglecap.tumblr.com/


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still haven't Americanized the spelling of anything, stupid English sensibilities.  
> Also, I've made a slight edit to chapter 1 so that only Clint knows about Steve & Nat's relationship, but that's the only thing that's changed in the chapter.  
>  
> 
> Natasha thinks the faces Steve makes when he's concentrating are kind of ridiculous.

“Stop moving.”

Natasha perches on the windowsill, wrapped in a thick knitted sweater but not much else besides some lace panties. She’d been gazing out onto the street below while Steve made breakfast when he’d seen her, and for a second she’d thought something was wrong from the way he leapt over the room in a couple of strides, telling her not to move, voice urgent. He’d even stumbled over the coffee table in his rush. But then he’d pulled a canvas from under the sofa (was there _anywhere_ in this apartment that didn’t hide a stash of art materials?) and started throwing paint at it, breakfast forgotten.

“Stop making me laugh then,” she teases wryly. The coffee she’d been drinking has long since gone cold but she still clasps the mug between her hands, because when she tried to put it down Steve had objected. Looking back out to the street and settling into the pose she should be in, she tries to smother the smile on her lips.

“I’m not doing anything funny,” he protests lightly. She glances over at him. He’s right, really, but it amuses her nonetheless.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” she replies, because the faces he pulls when he’s concentrating are a little bit ridiculous and she can’t help it if she has to bite back a laugh.

He makes a small noise of disgruntlement but remains focused on the canvas in front of him. He’s sitting on the coffee table, holding the canvas in place on top of his knees rather than getting an easel. There’s paint smeared across his cheek and all over his hands, a palette balanced precariously on his thigh. The fact that he’s wearing nothing but those tight black boxers makes Natasha ache, but really she’s enjoying the expressions he’s pulling a bit too much to interrupt just yet. For a moment she thinks he's managed to school his features into a somewhat neutral expression but then he frowns and leans his head back, jaw falling slack as he regards the canvas. The corner of Natasha’s lips quirk up again.

“Careful, might swallow a fly if you leave your mouth hanging open like that,” she jokes. Steve shoots her a sarcastic glare.

“Careful, you're in danger of developing a sense of humour,” he retorts. Natasha lets out a short laugh and she catches Steve smile to himself as he turns back to the painting. He puts a paintbrush between his teeth and picks up a different one. She does have a sense of humour, apparently one which Steve enjoys, but he'd never tell her as much.

Steve tilts his head to one side. There’s _something_ , something he can’t get right but he can’t figure out what it is. The curve of her legs is perfect – or as perfect as he can get them, because nothing will ever quite match up to seeing her in real life – and the highlights and shadows, if exaggerated, are falling in the right place. Something…in the expression. Something about her features that he can’t work out.

He’s so distracted he doesn’t even notice Natasha moving until she’s taking the brush from his hands, putting the canvas to one side. He moves the paint palette from his thigh so she can settle herself on his lap. She takes the other brush from between his teeth and sets it down on the palette.

“I wasn’t finished,” he says, throat suddenly dry as he looks at her. She never fails to take his breath away.

“Eidetic memory,” she reminds him, lips brushing against his jaw. His heart’s racing already. “Finish it later.”

Then her lips are on his and he groans, feeling light headed. Kissing isn’t new to them, not anymore. But every time he tastes her it still sends a jot through him, makes his stomach do flips. She bites his bottom lip, cards her fingers through his hair, and _Christ_ , how is it that she can undo him so quickly? His hands settle on her thighs, because he’s got paint all over him and - not that he should care when she's kissing him like this - he doesn't want to get paint on her sweater. Her breath hitches when she shifts and her core rubs against him. His grip tightens on her thighs, but doesn’t move higher. As if reading his thoughts, she leans back and pulls the sweater over her head, discarding it over his shoulder. There’s a glint in her eyes that makes him ache even more than he is already.

“What kind of paint is this?” she asks innocently, reaching across to the palette – breasts brushing against his chest as she does so – and swiping a dollop onto her fingertip. She runs her finger down his from his clavicle to the middle of his torso, leaving a trail of burnt yellow ochre.

“Acrylic,” he chokes out, unable to take his eyes off her.

“Will it wash off with water?”

She smears the paint over his skin, and Steve nods, not trusting himself to speak.

Natasha brings his hands up to her waist, and she watches as the idea clicks in his head when smudges of colour are left behind. He lets out a shaky breath and she nudges the palette closer. His hand leaves her waist but he brings it back almost immediately, thick with paint, trailing slick colour from thighs to ribs. A shiver goes through her, because his hands are always so warm but the paint is cold and the contrast makes her body throb. His eyes glaze over with something more than lust as he watches the way the paint glides over the curves of her flesh, seemingly fascinated with how the vivid hues streak and blend together at his whim over the contours of her body. A canvas with no rigid structure or form, yielding to his fingertips.

Steve realises that he doesn’t know how long he’s been holding his breath, and makes a conscious effort to remember to draw oxygen into his lungs. Small gasps and moans escape Natasha every now and again – he knows she loves for him to touch her – as he works his way over her skin, particularly when he reaches her breasts. The combined scent of her mixed with the smell of paint makes it difficult to think straight. It isn’t neat or refined. There’s no particular pattern or composition in his head, and he finds himself captivated with the way the colours meld. With the way it feels. The slickness of it, and how even though he can sink his fingers into her flesh he can still feel all her strength coiled beneath as she tenses under his touch, wanting more.

 He could do this all day, but, with regret, Steve notices that Natasha’s body is just about covered in colour, in varying intensity, from her shoulders to her thighs. There’s even a smudge on her jaw. He's considering working his way down her arms, or maybe turning her around and layering paint on her back when she leans down to kiss him.

Natasha gently pushes at his shoulders until he leans back rests on his elbows, looking up at her with a question in his eyes. She gives him one of those smug half smirks that he’d once told her drives him crazy and his eyes darken as she brings her hand up to his chest. He sucks in a sharp breath as the cool paint touches his skin, eyelids fluttering shut as she marks him with it. She can feel his heart pounding under her fingers, and when his head falls back with a groan to expose the hard lines of his jaw and throat she has to bite her lip so she doesn’t whimper at the sight of him.

Art has always been something that passes Natasha by. She can appreciate the skill and discipline involved in it, sure, but she’s never been able to look at a piece of art and just be _moved_ the way some people can. Never got excited or sad or happy the way Steve did that time they went to the local art gallery. He didn’t mind. Said he was just happy to be with her, and that they’d go some place she picked next time. She remembered wishing she _understood_ , wishing she could feel what he felt by just looking at a picture. But it hadn’t been in her training to feel.

Now though, now she thinks she finally understands it, because her heart is in her throat and Steve should be in the fucking _Louvre_. He’s a work of art, a masterpiece. Da _Vinci_ wishes he could have reached Steve’s level of perfection. There’s paint covering his hands completely, working its way up his forearms and fading out towards his shoulders. His chest is an explosion of colour, bleeding out from his heart. His muscles bunch and tense under her palms as she glides them up his torso, gasps when she leaves smudged fingerprints on his jaw and leans down to claim his lips with her own. She presses herself against him, as if it can mark him as hers even more than she already has.

“Wow,” he breathes, looking a little dazed when she sits back. There’s paint in his hair. “Never did this in art school.”

He smiles and her heart is still trying to climb its way into her mouth, chest tight. She struggles to find words, but then he reaches up and brushes her hair back, kissing her again.

“We’re out of paint,” she says when he pulls back, because she still can’t put a name to the feeling in her chest. He looks to the palette and tubes of paint next to them.

“I’ll have to buy more,” he replies. A moment or two pass and then he grins cheekily. “Think we both need a shower first though.”

Natasha slides off him reluctantly and they make their way to the bathroom. The feeling in her chest fades but doesn’t go away completely. Steve leans into the shower cubicle and gets the water going while Natasha steps out of her panties and pushes Steve’s boxers down, suddenly impatient.

She kisses him hungrily and pulls him into the cubicle. There’s a look in his eyes which makes her shiver in anticipation as he watches the paint swirl down the drain, like nebulas or maelstroms.

“So beautiful,” he murmurs to himself as his hands ghost over her skin, and that feeling in her chest in back in full force. They wash each other down until most of the paint is gone and afterwards he gathers her up into an embrace, letting the water cascade down their skin until it runs clear.

“Steve,” she breathes, just enjoying the feeling of drinking him in. She feels dizzy again as he invades her senses. He dips his head down to kiss her and his touch becomes rougher, more demanding.

It isn’t the last time she gasps his name before they switch the shower off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started out as 500 words of head canon about how Steve hides art materials everywhere and makes derpy faces when he paints but then before I knew it things got out of hand and I was writing artist/paint erotica and feels
> 
> If you also like to look at nice anatomy with splashes of colour and/or glitter you can look here;  
> http://www.thefashionisto.com/rafa-rech-poses-photos-glitter-insects-carlos-medel/  
> http://www.thefashionisto.com/sven-de-vries-glitter-bombed-photos-cesar-perin/  
> http://www.demilked.com/splash-photography-lain-crawford/
> 
> Thanks for reading, leave a review if you enjoyed! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's confession time guuuyyyyyys! I might go through and edit this chapter at some point but I just really wanted to publish something because it's been a few weeks now. More on that at the end.
> 
>  
> 
> In which Steve is a hopeless romantic.

Steve loves moments like this.

Moments where Natasha is tucked under his arm and she’ll throw popcorn at him from the bowl nestled in her lap when he makes a terrible joke about whatever movie they’re watching. Moments where they watch in silence and he traces lazy circles on her bare shoulder with his fingertips, and his stomach bubbles with a feeling he can’t describe when she leans closer, rests her head on his chest. Where they end up tossing witty quips and jibes back and forth, and he can’t remember how it even started. Moments where she’ll fidget and end up stretched out over his lap, telling him to shut up and wrapping her arms around his neck, tugging his lips down to hers (she always wins that way). When she’ll sigh softly into his mouth, and the sound somehow manages to drown out the television.

Yeah. He loves moments like this.

He doesn’t have to be Captain America and she doesn’t have to be Black Widow. There are no pretences, no missions to worry about, nobody else around to try and mask his feelings from. Natasha always tells him he's terrible at hiding his feelings, but he must have got better at it because they've managed to keep their relationship secret apart from Clint. With some help from Jarvis. Natasha is great at finding loopholes in the A.I.'s protocols. 

But now it's nothing but them, and a shitty movie in his apartment on a Sunday.

It feels almost normal. But it’s rare and it’s perfect and he wants to hold onto it forever. This moment, right now, it’s theirs. Nobody else’s.

Just his, and hers. _Theirs_.

“Dance with me,” Steve says suddenly, pulling back from her lips with some difficulty. She raises an eyebrow at him in question but before she can say anything he sweeps her up and nudges the coffee table out of the way with his foot. He leans over to his gramophone and slips a record out of its sleeve  – Tony bought him the most hi-tech sound system there is but sometimes it just feels right to throw a record on – and she’s smiling in an amused sort of way when he glances back to her.

“Want to carry on where we left off?” she asks. Natasha has been teaching him to dance, albeit slowly due to the constant stream of missions, both together and apart. He shakes his head.

“No lessons today,” he replies. Today he just wants an excuse to hold her close to him, because sometimes he still has trouble believing that she’s here and all this isn’t just some figment of his imagination. She’s still smiling to herself slightly as he gathers her up into his arms and the record starts, all slow swells and crooning baritone.

Natasha always feels so small when he holds her like this. To anyone else she’s lithe and dangerous, a predator coiled and ready to strike. But to him she’s also petite and soft, and she fits into his arms so perfectly. It would be so easy to tell her that he loves her right now.

Steve can practically feel the words on his tongue, hear them rolling past his lips. The thought doesn't exactly take him by surprise. He’s wanted to say it for months now, and he’s lost count of the number of times those three words have almost slipped past his lips. But he’s never been very good with expressing deep-seated feelings and talking to women, particularly when the two are combined. And not to mention there’s the slight (okay, _huge_ ) chance that he’s terrified of coming on too strong, too clingy and risk Natasha distancing herself, not when she’s finally opening up to him.

But he’d told himself when they’d first started this that he was done hesitating.

And he's been building himself up for weeks into taking his own advice, because the words are nearly slipping out more and more. 

_Come on, Steve. You've put this off for far too long._

He takes a deep breath.

“Nat?”

“Hmm?” Natasha answers, unwilling to move just yet. She likes having him hold her like this too much, and the music is still playing. That's a good enough reason to keep swaying like this.

 “You remember that night on the balcony? Before you went away?”

Well. That grabs her attention. She looks up at him.

“Yes,” she replies, cautious to keep her voice neutral. Of course she remembers. How could she not? It was the first time they’d danced together, and he’d held her like he does now, with such adoration in his eyes. She’d panicked, leaving on a mission that had separated them for five months. How foolish she’d been.

“I thought I’d lost you that night, when I found out you’d gone” he admits softly.

“It was hardly the most dangerous mission I’ve ever done,” she says, a lump in her throat. She knows what he’s saying. She just doesn’t want to admit that she’d hurt him like that.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Steve, I-”

“-I need to say this, Tasha,” Steve says firmly, suddenly determined because if he stops now he’s not sure he’ll ever pluck up the courage again. He pauses, and she looks away for a second before looking back up at him with those green eyes of hers.

“I had so many regrets that night. It always felt like I had all the time in the world…but then you were gone and never telling you how I felt…not knowing where you were, when I’d see you again…”

He stops for a moment, takes a breath, and she can see that it’s hard for him to find the right words, and if she's honest with herself it's hard for her to listen. God knows neither of them have great track records of talking about feelings. If they were it would have saved a lot of time. Ironic, really. He looks back up at her.

“I never want to feel like that again,” he says earnestly, and Natasha’s heart clenches at the look in his eyes. She knows what he’s going to say but somehow it doesn’t feel real. He says it anyway.

 “I love you, Nat.”

A short laugh escapes him, as if now he’s said it a huge weight has been lifted. He takes her hands in his and Natasha tries to think straight. He loves her.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he adds quickly. “I just…want you to know.”

Bringing his hands up to either side of her face, his touch is gentle, reverent as he brushes a few strands of hair back and presses his forehead against hers as he let's out a shaky breath.They don't move for a moment, but his hold on her tightens like he couldn't let go if his life depended on it.

“God, I love you so much,” he breathes, brow furrowed, and then he’s kissing her, hard and desperate. It's searing and she grasps at his shoulders, breathless.  Natasha’s head spins and it _hurts_ , a solid, physical ache in her chest which she’s never felt, because she doesn’t know if she will ever deserve the love of a man like Steve but here he is, holding her and kissing her. Telling her over and over like he can’t stop saying it, _I love you_ , and Natasha swallows every word as if it somehow makes her worthy. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once, the way he utterly consumes her.If this is what love feels like, she wants more. Wants to feel it to her core. His hands slip under her tank top and she does the only thing she can think of.

She takes him to bed, and tries her best to prove that she _does_ deserve him with every moan she pulls from his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing a really good job of ending every chapter with sex and somehow managing to not write any smut, aren't I?  
> I promise there will be smut at some point.
> 
> As for updates, just letting you guys know that the next couple of chapters might be a little slow as I am v. busy finishing my uni degree, working a job and helping to care for a family member, but don't worry, I'm not going to forget about this story :) (apologies for the short chapter here but really wanted to publish)
> 
> Kudos & comments appreciated! :D As always, thank you for reading and for your patience <3 <3 <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Apologies for the long gap between this and the previous chapter, but as I mentioned last time I've been very busy of late!  
> Thank you everyone for your patience!! I've been writing this chapter on and off whenever I got a chance, and it's finally ready! It's also a little longer to make up for the wait :) This chapter is from Clint's perspective and I had a blast writing him so I hope you like it too! So no more delays, on with the show! 
> 
>  
> 
> Agony Aunt Clint tells it like it is.

“Aww, boots.”

Clint sighs to himself, shoulders slumping upon realising that he’d left his combat boots upstairs on his floor, along with his toothbrush. He’s never been very good at packing for missions. Always something new to forget. He should really start doing those lists like Nat.

Jogging over to the elevator at the end of the corridor, he punches the button and steps inside, thrumming his fingertips against his arm. That’s one good thing about leaving for mission from Stark Tower. Everything he needs (and could forget) is in the same building. Watching the numbers on the control panel scroll higher, the elevator doors open with a soft ping and Clint spots his boots instantly, left where he’d kicked them off a few days ago after the last mission. Tossing a discarded pizza box in the vague direction of a trashcan, he briefly considers tidying up the place, but the thought is forgotten as he picks up the boots and turns back around to leave. He spots a cup of coffee on the side mid-spin and downs it, but immediately regrets it as the taste hits his tongue.

“Bleurgh,” he complains aloud with a shudder. Cold. And somewhat grainy at the end. Yeah. He should definitely clean up when he gets back.

Setting the mug down, he heads back down to the armoury where he’d been doing one last check over his things. He pauses as he grows closer to the doorway, hearing hushed voices, and then silence. He peers around the entrance, and Steve is there with Natasha. There’s a large black duffle bag at their feet, presumably with Nat’s gear inside.

Clint’s walked in on them before in what could be considered ‘private’ moments. Honestly it’s a wonder he’s the only one who’s caught them out with the frequency that it seems to happen. But something’s different this time, and Clint hesitates to interrupt them.

His solid frame crowds her in against the wall, and there’s desperation in the way he kisses her, reassurance in the way her fingers thread through his hair.

He’s never seen her like this – or him, for that matter – and he knows he’s intruding but he finds his head tilting slightly as he observes, starting to analyse without thinking. She moves to cup his jaw in her hands and it’s fascinating, this new side of them. Clint’s grown to expect affection from Steve (honestly he doesn’t think the man is capable of anything else), but there’s a ferocity to his movements now, like he wouldn’t be able to stop kissing her if his life depended on it. As if he’s trying to pour every ounce of strength he has from his lips and into hers. And Natasha. Nat was usually the one with all the passion, biting Steve’s lip and tugging at his clothes. But now her touch is gentle, comforting in a way Clint never anticipated from her. Steve breaks away somewhat reluctantly, and from the doorway Clint can catch the odd syllable and piece together the rest with lip reading.

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Steve breathes, holding Natasha’s gaze steadily.

“Where’s the fun in that?” she teases with a smile, but Steve doesn’t laugh.

“No jokes, Nat,” Steve huffs, losing patience. Clint wonders how many times they’ve had this conversation. Her features sober when he reaches up to the side of her face, strokes his thumb over her cheekbone. There’s the affection Clint expects from him. She leans into the touch. “I need you to come back to me.”

“I will,” she says, meeting his gaze again. A promise. The corner of her mouth quirks up in a sly smile. “Someone has to put up with you, gramps.” Steve lets out a laugh Clint can hear clearly from the door, shaking his head. He speaks again, quiet.

“I love you so much.”

He leans down again to claim her lips, softly this time, like she’s something precious. Holds her close, like he can protect her with just an embrace. It’s soft and loving, but just as raw as before, only in a different way. Clint wonders how best to make his presence known because it won’t be long before this is officially classed as creepy. Steve’s hand slips under Natasha’s top and she gasps. He grips her tighter and she kisses him harder.

Okay, now he’s officially overstepping something.

“One of these days it’s going to be someone else that walks in on you two,” Clint announces briskly as he strides into the room, before clothes start coming off. Steve breaks away, immediately flustered, while Nat smoothes down her top calmly. Clint throws his boots into his duffle bag with a thud and zips it up.

“Ready?” Natasha asks, as though she hadn’t just been necking with Captain America. Clint tries to figure out how and when his life got this weird. But then, a carnie turned spy-and-occasional-assassin was never normal to begin with.

“Good to go,” Clint answers. “You?”

Natasha nods, and picks up the bag on the ground and hoists it onto her shoulder. It’s just the two of them on this mission - the specifics require it - but he can tell Rogers is itching to volunteer as backup. Nat must’ve said something to him because he doesn’t bring the subject up.

“Be careful,” Steve says instead, looking at Natasha. “Both of you,” he adds quickly, gaze flickering to Clint. He would probably sound professional to anyone else. Probably sounds like a captain who simply cares about his teammates. But Clint doesn’t miss the look in his eyes. The worry so strong it verges on fear. He decides to let it look like he doesn’t notice. For both of them.

“Don’t worry, Cap, I’ll take care of her,” Clint proclaims, with perhaps more gusto than needed. Nat rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, when I’m not saving your sorry ass,” she says dryly. “The jet ready, J?”

“Agent Barton has already overseen the necessary checks and protocols, Agent Romanoff, and ensured the jet is properly equipped,” Jarvis chimes in.

“What, you think I’d forget something?” Clint says, clutching his chest and feigning deep hurt.

“Says the guy who can’t even remember to clean his teeth twice a day,” she retorts. Crap. Toothbrush. Funny how such everyday objects are so easily forgotten when he’s busy trying to remember how many kinds of arrows and explosives he’s packed.

“Nat, I’ll uh…meet you up there,” Clint says, taking a few steps backwards towards the door. She gives him a knowing look.

“I need to stop by R&D anyway. Stark said he had some new toys for us.”

“See you up there then.”

Natasha nods and Clint leaves them to their goodbyes un-intruded. Apparently they’ve already said whatever goodbyes they needed to before he walked in on them because he only makes it to the elevator before he hears Steve call his name. He turns to see Nat already disappearing at the other end of the hall, Rogers jogging up the corridor to catch up to him.

“What's up, Cap?” Clint asks cheerily, though he thinks he already knows the answer.

“This mission, it’s…” Steve starts, pausing to find the right word. He brings his hands up to rest on his hips and sighs. “It’s dangerous isn’t it?”

Bingo. Steve glances back down the corridor, as if to check Nat is out of earshot.

“She won’t say anything, but I can tell,” he continues. “What is it?”

“Oh, you know, standard op really,” Clint says with a blasé wave of his hand. “Take out a few bad guys here, steal some data there, some espionage on the side. Two weeks in paradise,” he grins, clapping the taller man on the arm. Steve doesn’t buy it.

“You’re taking half the armoury with you,” he accuses. He’s using his Captain voice now.

“Okay, this looks bad,” Clint admits under his heavy gaze. "But it'll be fine, really." Steve sighs and drops his head, pinching his brow. Clint watches the way it creases with stress, the way his shoulders tense with worry. He tries the reassurance angle again. “Listen, this is Nat we’re talking about. She can do missions like this with her eyes closed.”

“I know, it’s just…it’s the first time she’s been away on a mission like this since we…since…and I can’t…” He trails off, unable to get the words out. His breathing is unsteady, choking on unspoken thoughts.

“Hey man, I get it, I do,” Clint says, putting his bag down on the floor, because he isn’t about to leave Captain America to have what might turn into a panic attack. “I see the way you are with her.”

Steve grimaces like he actually thought he’d managed to hide the fact that he’s completely, _hopelessly_ in love with Nat and didn’t think anyone would find out how far gone he is. What an idiot. Still one of the best people Clint knows though, and could probably throw him through a wall, so he doesn’t tell him that. “Totally obvious, by the way,” Clint adds. “I’m amazed nobody else has picked up on it.”

Steve’s silent for a moment, looks away and gets his breathing back under control. Clint lets him take the time he needs to build up the courage to say whatever is in his head.

“I’ve lost too much already, Clint,” he confesses quietly. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.”

For a moment he doesn’t know what to say because _damn,_ the poor guy has fallen hard. Hook, line and sinker. Like a rabbit in headlights, helpless at the thought of losing her. But then he’d had feelings for Nat for a long time even before they’d got together.

“Damn, Rogers, she’d knock you to the ground if she knew you were worrying like this,” Clint jokes, because honestly that’s the only thing that comes to mind that seems like it would lighten the mood. And maybe bump some perspective into him, because if he’s like this now what kind of stupid mistakes would he make in the field trying to protect her? Steve lets out a laugh, which is a relief.

“She already has, actually,” he admits with a faint smile. “Still got the bruises.”

“Yeah, right,” Clint snorts. “On your ego at least.” With the serum he rarely has bruises for more than a few hours. Steve’s smile fades.

“Christ, I’ve got it bad, haven’t I?” he exhales, back thumping against the wall and looking up to the ceiling as if he might find some kind of explanation of how he fell so deep in the first place up there.

“Looks that way,” Clint admits. No point trying to deny it.

“I know I’m being stupid, worrying like this,” Steve starts, looking back to Clint. “I just…keep imagining…” He trails off again, and Clint doesn’t have to wonder what kind of things he’s imagining.

“Look, Cap, there’s always going to be variables.” Rogers is a big boy; he can handle the truth, Clint reasons. “Every time we go out, we don’t know what’s going to happen no matter how flawless the plan seems.”

Steve nods glumly, looking at the floor. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I know.”

“But here’s the thing you have to remember; Natasha is the best. There’s a reason we don’t have an extraction plan when we’re on a mission.” Steve pays attention now, looks up at him. “It doesn’t matter if something goes wrong. We always finish the mission, and we always come back in one piece.”

The conviction in his voice seems to get through to Steve, because something in his eyes changes. Grows stronger.

“You’re right,” he says firmly, forcing himself to believe it. It’s almost like he just needed someone else to say it.

 “I am,” Clint agrees. He grins light-heartedly. “You worry too much, Rogers. Don’t overthink so much.”

“Nat says that too,” he admits, the corner of his mouth curling up.

“Well she’d be right.”

“She usually is.”

“Tell me about it,” Clint sighs. A few moments pass in silence and Clint’s just about to make his excuses and leave, because he really _does_ have to go and get his toothbrush this time, when Steve speaks up again.

 “Thanks, Clint.” He pauses, rubs the back of his neck. “I needed that.”

“Someone had to talk some sense into you and it wasn’t gonna be Stark,” he jokes, and Steve laughs again.

They part ways, Steve wishing him well, and Clint actually manages to remember to pick up his toothbrush before heading up to the launch pad.

 

* * *

 

There’s only one word for the jet. Cushy.

It’s Stark’s, so despite its small size, of course it has all the essentials; recliners, wide screen television, mini bar, separate sleeping and refreshment areas. They’d declined the crew (including a chef) originally offered.

Natasha has made herself at home on one of the recliners, phone and a gun on the table next to her. Jarvis is flying so she absorbed herself in a book early on in the flight. The cover of it is in Russian so he has no idea what it’s about, but he thinks he recognises a few letters. Clint sprawls in the chair on the other side of the table and taps an arrowhead on the glass table top unconsciously, gazing out of the window at the clouds.

Trying to keep his glances over at Natasha subtle, he thinks about what he’d stumbled into before, when Rogers was with her. Steve is head over heels – that much is painfully obvious, especially after their talk in the corridor. And Natasha…Clint never thought he would even think it, but she’d looked just as gone as he was. The way she’d held onto him, the way she’d kissed him. She might not have said she loved him out loud, but suddenly, seeing them together like that, it had hit him clear as day.

 Black Widow is in love with Captain America. The press would have a field day with that one.

Yet here she is, looking as stoic and unreadable as she ever did. To anyone but Clint, perhaps. They’ve been in the air a good few hours before he even considers breaching the subject. It’s probably foolish of him, to bring it up in an enclosed space twenty thousand feet in the air with no escape route. But he takes his chances.

 “Soooooo,” Clint drawls, dragging the syllable out a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. He swivels the chair to face her. “You and Rogers, huh?” She doesn’t even look up at him.

“What about me and Rogers?” she asks, turning a page.

“How long has it been now? Four months? Five?”

“Just gone three, actually,” she corrects, eyes still fixed on her book.

“Huh,” Clint mutters, surprised. He’d thought it had been longer than that, but then, they’d been pining after each other for so long it’s hard for him to remember exactly when they’d stopped yearning and actually started being a couple.

Clint waits a moment before continuing, because once he opens this can of worms it’s going to be hard to close again.

“Have you told him yet?” he asks nonchalantly, regarding the arrowhead at arm’s length, one eye closed.

“Told him what?” He supresses a groan. Does he have to make it obvious? She’s supposed to be the world’s best spy for crying out loud.

“That you’re completely gone on him.”

That gets him her attention, and a sharp glare with it.

“I’m not 'gone' on anyone,” she says firmly, putting the book down in her lap.

“Sure,” Clint says sarcastically. “And I’m Barbara Streisand.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, just gives him another icy glare and goes back to her book. It doesn’t bother Clint. He’s used to this, to her ways. With anyone else, that would have been the end of the conversation. But Clint is the only person who can see past those little cracks in her perfect armour, no matter how small. And everyone needs someone to talk to, superspy or not. He waits patiently, fiddling with the arrowhead, because she usually ends up talking in three, two, one…

“He says he loves me,” she exhales heavily, eyes set firmly on the page in front of her.

“And that’s a…problem…how?” Clint asks carefully. It’s obvious that having Steve’s heart is good for her. He watches the gears turn in her head, jaw set. Her eyes remain on the page but he can see she isn’t reading. He waits again, rolling the arrowhead between his fingers. He can wait all day if he has too. Not like either of them are going anywhere for the next six hours, and she's stuck with him for the next two weeks.

“I don’t think I can give him what he wants,” she huffs finally, snapping the book shut in a frustrated manner. Clint smiles to himself. Okay, now he’s getting somewhere. He puts the arrowhead down on the table.

“And what does he want?” She scowls at the question, crosses her arms angrily.

“I don’t fucking know, marriage, kids, a white picket fence?”

“Have you tried, you know…asking him?” Her silence and the way she doesn’t meet his gaze tells him all he needs to know.

“I’m…not sure that I…want to know the answer,” she says cautiously, avoiding his gaze. It hits him then that she’s expecting a definitive answer would spell the end of their relationship. Like what they have now is just scratching an itch, pretending it’s enough and thinking that anything more wouldn't be feasible.

Idiots, both of them. Absolute idiots.

“Listen, I know you’re not so great at these relationship things-” She cuts him off by throwing another glare. “-Hey, first-hand experience here,” he defends, throwing up his hands. They’d had a short-lived relationship back when she’d first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., but it had burned out pretty quickly. Not entirely her fault if he’s honest. But she’s still his best friend and he wants to see her happy, because that’s what Steve makes her even if she tries to hide it.

“So I’ll tell you exactly what he wants,” he continues. “He wants _you_.”

She doesn’t say anything, but he sees her swallow thickly, staring at the flat screen in front of her like it’s too much to comprehend that just _her_ could ever be enough. Like the thought of giving herself to someone so completely terrifies her. Hell, it probably does.

 “Nat, you deserve this. Something _good_ after everything you’ve been through. You deserve _him_ , and he deserves you to give it your best shot.”

“What if my best shot isn’t enough?” she asks quietly, barely a whisper, and Clint’s earlier suspicion is confirmed. “I’m not made for this.” Not built to love. Clint thinks differently.

“That’s not what I saw when I walked in on you both,” he argues. “You do love him, you just won't admit it to yourself. And fuck, Nat, do you have any idea how much he loves you?”

“Too much,” she says softly. A ghost of a smile flickers over her face, followed closely by a sadness Clint doesn't like.

“Probably,” he agrees. “But hell, he’s good for you.”

She opens her mouth to speak but he cuts her off because he knows exactly what she’s going to say.

“And yes, you’re good for him too, before you argue otherwise. Sometimes I think you’re the only thing that keeps him grounded, the shit he’s gone through. The shit he’s still going through.”

Clint had never seen a man so burdened with grief and duty before. Until one day when he’d noticed Steve looking at Natasha like she was shelter from a howling storm.

She looks impassive, but Clint knows otherwise. Like Steve, apparently she’d needed someone to spell it out for her. She can be with Steve and be happy, just like anyone else. If she would just let herself do so.

“Besides,” Clint says softly, trying to lift the tone a little. “I don’t think I know anyone in our line of work that has or wants a white picket fence.”

She laughs. Clint smiles.

“Fury has a holiday home nobody knows about.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope.”

"Huh."

Natasha goes back to her book, and he goes back to staring out of the window. Neither of them speak again for a while, content in silence. Nat’s the one to break it first.

 “Clint.”

“Yeah?”

He looks over to her. Her eyes remain on her book, features neutral. A pause.

“Thank you.”

Clint grins, looking back out of the window.

“You’re welcome.”

He mentally revisits his earlier statement.

Idiots. Both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love match maker pro Clint xD Nat and Steve would be totally hopeless without him
> 
> Feel free to comment/kudos ;)  
> I will be working on the next chapter when I can but again, cannot promise an exact publish date for it.  
> That being said, thank you so much for your patience and understanding, guys, you are wonderful!! <3 <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First off, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the positive feedback I got for the last chapter. I was unsure at first whether people would want to read from another’s perspective for a whole chapter but I’m so glad I took the chance. I enjoyed writing it so much I may do a similar chapter in the future ;D
> 
> So, moving on to this update. Here it is, the chapter you have all (maybe) been waiting for. The porn and Feels. Yes. With a capital 'F'. That’s how many feels.  
> Not sure if it requires a warning but I will say just to be safe; there are some (very faint!) underlying themes of dom/sub/switch in this chapter, but nothing explicitly so and everything is consensual.
> 
> As always, anything written in italics inside the pointy bracket things (their name escapes me) is spoken in Russian.
> 
> Special thanks to user heyfrenchfreudiana and my friend Anne for beta reading!! Giirrrls you rock! <3 <3 <3
> 
>  
> 
> Steve and Natasha haven't seen each other in far too long.

It’s been over two months now.

Over two months since he last held her, since he last kissed her. Over two months of endless peace conferences and long haul flights and bruising missions.

When Natasha had left on her assignment with Clint, Steve had gone looking for Bucky. After what felt like a thousand dead ends he had been roped into one thing after another, whether that was playing diplomat at world summit meetings or missions anywhere from Dubai to Hong Kong and Switzerland. They'd exchanged a text here and there, maybe an email, but nothing beyond a few sentences at a time, being either too busy or not wanting to risk revealing their private lives to ambitious hackers (or Tony, who would inevitably find out if there was tech involved).

Over two months since he’d even seen her. Heard her voice.

Actually, that isn’t strictly true. He _had_ seen her once, about three weeks ago. But it was for a matter of seconds in a crowded room so he hadn’t even been able to pull her into his arms and tell her that he’d missed her. They’d managed a brush of hands in passing but nothing more.

It had hurt more than if he hadn’t seen her at all.

So when he steps into his apartment in the Tower to find her waiting for him, it feels like his heart will burst with relief.

“Hey,” he says lamely. She stands from her seat at the kitchen counter where she’d been reading a newspaper, and he’s across the room in a few strides.

“Hey,” she echoes. His helmet lands on the floor with a dull thud, and then his lips are _finally_ on hers.

Natasha’s breath catches in her throat as he crosses the room and leans down, bringing his hands up to the sides of her face. A thrill goes down her spine when his lips brush hers, just like it had the first time he kissed her. Just like it always does. She feels breathless already and a small groan of relief escapes him as he deepens the kiss, closing the distance between them until her body is pressed firmly against his. The kitchen counter presses at the small of her back, his warmth at her chest, seeping through her body. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her fingers brush the cool metal of his shield on his back, the short hair at the nape of his neck. Everything feels amplified somehow – it’s been too long without him and she struggles to think straight. The weight of his presence, of his touch after so much time apart makes her _ache_ in a way she never has. She moans softly into his mouth – she can’t help it – and her head spins, heart hammering against her ribcage. He breaks away for a second to catch his breath.

“Almost forgot how good that feels,” he murmurs against her lips, breathing unsteady. Natasha can’t stand the heat inside her for another second.

“I can think of something that’ll feel better,” she says breathlessly, watching his eyes darken as she reaches for the fastenings of his suit, pulse racing.

Steve reaches behind him for his shield, dropping it to the floor and peeling his gloves off, discarding them to one side. She fumbles with the buckles on his harness, the dull throb of pure want hazing her thoughts and making her usually precise movements clumsy. The harness lands at their feet with a thud, followed a few moments later by his belt. He pushes the hoodie she’s wearing off her shoulders and her body throbs at the feel of his hands on her skin.

The past couple of weeks Steve’s felt tired and weary in a way that sleep can’t fix, but now he’s with her, it’s electrifying and suddenly the only thing that matters is that it’s been over two months since he last felt her flesh against his. Two months since her nails dug into his skin and he heard her cry out his name.

 Steve shrugs out of the top half of his uniform, but before Natasha can pull his black undershirt over his head he turns her around and yanks down her gym shorts, slipping his hand between her thighs. She inhales sharply, arches against him as he sinks a thick finger inside her. His other hand slips under her tank top, touch heavy and firm while teeth scrape her neck. He surrounds her and she gasps for air as he pushes her down to bend her over the counter.

 _Christ_.

Steve fights back a groan as he slips a second finger inside her, and then a third, because she’d been soaking wet before he’d even touched her. Apparently the time apart has been just as difficult for her as it has been for him because he’s never seen her like this, almost frantic and practically consumed by need. Gasping broken strings of Russian so fast he struggles to keep up. Desperate pleas of “< _I need you, don’t make me wait, I can’t >”,_ and “< _God, Steve, make me come >”._

Natasha can’t think straight. She loves it when he gets like this, when he’s right on the edge of being too rough. Not that she doesn’t love it the rest of the time. He’s usually careful not to leave (too many) bruises on her but she knows her skin will be painted like one of his canvases with marks in a few hours as he drags his hand down her back, grasps at the flesh of her hips. It’s messy and urgent and everything she’s been craving since the moment she left him, but at the same time it’s too much at once. Just the distant memory of what it’ll feel like once he’s inside her is enough to send a throb of want through her body so fierce it actually _aches_. She’s so caught up in the sensation, so taken over by scorching heat and the thought of what’s to come next, she hardly realises Steve is speaking until he brings her upright, sets a hand on her jaw and turns her head to face him.

“< _Natasha, look at me,_ >” he says firmly, concern in his eyes. He holds her still, his chest against her back. “< _Breathe._ >”

For a second she’s puzzled, but then she realises that her breaths are coming too quick and shaking. She’s too desperate, barely clinging onto sanity, trembling under his touch and not in the way she usually does. But the low baritone of his voice is soothing, and the command coupled with his firm grip on her jaw seems to ground her somewhat. Her breathing steadies.

“< _Good._ >” He kisses her, softly this time, and she sighs as he tightens his embrace. She can feel his own heart thudding against her back. He pauses, switches back to English. “Wanna slow things down a bit?”

“No,” she responds without thinking. “God, no.”

The thought of being so far from control, of letting someone else decide everything should scare her. _Would_ scare her, in any other situation she thinks. But for some reason this is different. Sometimes he’s rougher than others but there’s never been much of a power dynamic with Steve. He always accommodates her needs before his own, seems to know exactly what she wants without even asking. But there’s always been something lingering under the surface and now it’s coming out in full force after two months of pent up need and want.

“Fuck,” Steve mutters under his breath. Natasha pushes her panties down her thighs, letting them fall to the floor with her gym shorts. She drags one of his hands back down to between her thighs and it’s exhilarating, the way he groans and his restraint seems to snap. He bends her back over, she hears a rustle of fabric and a zipper – she remembers he’s still wearing most of his suit – and then he’s pushing into her, bringing her up onto her tip toes so their hips are at the same level. She chokes back a moan, because she can see their reflection in the glass door of one of the cupboards, and the look on his face, the slow stretch as he fills her, unbearable in the most delicious way…she struggles to think of anything better, arching her back in an attempt to get him deeper.

“Breathe,” he reminds again, because it feels like the air has been knocked out of her lungs now he’s finally, fully inside her, breath caught in her throat. Biting her lip, she watches his reflection as he runs his hands over her body, under her tank top to her breasts. He pulls out, then sinks back in slowly, as if to savour the feel it and Natasha prays her legs will retain the strength to keep her standing. She doubts it. One hand settles on her hips, the other on her shoulder, grasping firmly as he thrusts into her. It’s hard and deep and like nothing she’s ever felt because suddenly she realises he’s always been holding back until now, and she doesn’t even know if this is even anything close to his full strength. Trying to push herself back against him, one thing becomes clear under his grasp, like solid steel; she isn’t moving until he wants her to. She’ll feel the ghost of his touch for days after this, and she doesn’t know what to say, what to think – can’t even form a sentence in her head – but that’s exactly what she wants. To lose herself in the feel of being with him; to be consumed by it. The entire world seems to narrow down to the slide of his body in hers, the sound of his ragged breaths, the feel of his hands on her flesh and the overwhelming pleasure sending sparks through her body with every thrust.

She’s never needed anything as much as this before. Never needed any _one_ like this. Never trusted someone enough to give up her control, to give _herself_ so completely. Never _lov_ – wait. Is that what this feels like? Love? No, she decides. Not yet. Thoughts like that should be for later, when she has a clear head. When she can think past the blinding pleasure of it all and she isn’t moments away from oblivion.

It feels like Steve’s losing his mind. No, scratch that. He already lost it when she’d been so far gone he’d had to remind her to _breathe_ properly. He’s always been cautious when it comes to something as delicate as control with Natasha. She’s had so little of it in her life; being able to choose for herself. She’d told him about her past once in the middle of the night, things that can’t be uttered in the light of day. Not all of it, he knows that, but enough. Enough to know he never wanted to be the one to take that away from her again. At all times he’d make sure she felt safe with him and in control, an unspoken promise, even if he was the one taking the lead.

But then he hadn’t seen her in so long, he’d used a bit more of his strength than he’d meant to and she’d come undone quicker than he’d ever seen.

So now here they are, with her pliant and yielding and begging for _more_. So he gives it to her. Keeps his grip that bit firmer, thrusts that bit harder. The sounds she’s making go straight to his core because _fuck_ , she’s perfect.

He pulls her up off the counter, needing her lips on his. She twists to face him, gasping into his mouth and reaching behind her to drag her fingers through his hair, down his neck, needing something to hold onto. Neither of them are going to last much longer and he knows it. Dipping his other hand down to her clit, he feels her body tense and she comes a few moments later, quick and hard and dragging him over the edge with her.

Natasha sags into his arms, out of breath and dazed, grateful that he supports her weight with an arm across her body because she doesn’t think she could stand by herself if someone held a gun to her head. He presses a few light kisses to her neck, breath hot and heavy on her skin as his heart thuds in his chest. She makes a makes noise of objection when he pulls out of her but can’t move to stop him, only vaguely registering him re-arranging his clothing.

“So that was…new,” he pants, bracing one arm against the counter but keeping the other wrapped around her. His chin rests on her shoulder and Natasha manages a weak laugh, mind and body still hazy with pleasure. “You okay?”

“I am now,” she sighs, more content than she has been in two months. Or her entire life. “I missed this,” she admits hazily. He kisses her shoulder, briefly tightens his hold – telling her yes, he missed it too. “I-” _love you,_ her brain supplies. There it is again, that word. “-I missed you,” she says instead, suddenly very alert and wondering how those words nearly tumbled out of her mouth. Has two months of absence really changed how she feels that _much_? No, she realises, but it might explain that strange feeling she sometimes gets in her chest when she thinks about him.

“I missed you too,” he says earnestly. He kisses her then, languid and indulgent like they have all the time in the world. She turns to face him and she can feel his smile against her lips but he doesn’t stop kissing her. What was it Clint had said to her? _“_ _You do love him; you just won't admit it to yourself.”_

Is this what love feels like? She can’t know for sure, but she wants to, desperately. She’d always been told that love was for children and she’d foolishly believed it, because how could a thing as innocent and fragile as love survive in a world this ugly?

But she’s feeling awfully childish when he breaks away from her with a grin, throws her over his shoulder and sprints to the bedroom. Tossing her to the bed, she lands with a soft bounce and she can’t stop the laugh that escapes her, or slow the rush of heat that goes through her.

Steve’s heart is still pounding in his chest because once is never enough, and especially not after two months. He stands at the foot of the bed and she watches him with that small smirk that drives him crazy, propped up on her elbows and waiting expectantly. She folds one leg neatly over the other, naked save for her black tank top. Okay, his clothes have got to come off this time.

The boots are first to go, tossed to one side. Pulling his top over his head, it lands on the floor and is followed quickly by his trousers.

“Missed that view,” Natasha comments lightly as he hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and pushes those down, a lingering gaze travelling over his body. He ignores (with some effort) the heat that rises to his cheeks, rests his hands on his hips and lets her look her fill.

“View’s pretty good from here too,” he says pointedly, and she smiles in a way that can only be described as sinful.

“Why don’t you get over here and appreciate it then?”

The look Steve gives Natasha in response tells her that he’s only too happy to oblige. Crawling up the mattress, his hands ghost up the skin of her calves, her thighs and hips, brushing kisses where fingers don’t grasp. She tries to keep her breathing steady, biting her lip, but she knows he’s going to take his time building her up again, now that the initial haste is gone. He reaches her waist, pulling her close and kissing her deeply.

Steve sighs at the unhurried slide of her tongue against his, wishing he could do this all day before realising that, actually, he can. Somehow he manages to break away from her lips so he can pull her top over her head and toss it away. She tries to pull him back in, finally as bare as he is. But he stills, all romantic notions trickling from his thoughts.

 “This one is new,” he hears himself say faintly, fingers brushing against the shiny, pinkish scar, jagged and deep on the left side of her ribs to underneath her breast. He probably should have felt it earlier, but had been too caught up in lust to notice. Now it seems all too obvious. There’s a chill in his blood and suddenly he finds it hard to breathe.

“Couldn’t leave Paris without a souvenir,” Natasha explains briefly. That conversation can be had later, after they’re sweaty and spent and he holds her close. She tugs on his neck, trying to pull his lips back down to hers but he sits up, turns away like he can’t look at her. It jolts her, cuts through her desire like a knife. She pushes herself up and he draws in a shuddering breath, holds his head in his hands.

“Steve?”

Her voice is quiet, and he risks a glance back at her. Clutching the sheets around her small frame, she looks tiny; so fragile and vulnerable and exposed. Everything he knows she isn’t, but suddenly the other scars scattered across her body – the ones that usually don’t faze him – look so much more vicious and grotesque and he finds himself looking away again, sick.

 “Everything okay?” she asks cautiously, even though she already knows the answer.

“Fine,” he says stiffly. “I just…I need a minute.”

Steve tries to calm his breathing. She’s been injured before. But this isn’t like the cuts and scrapes she sometimes comes back with. She’d _bled_ for that scar. Hurt. What would have happened if it was a little higher, a little closer to her heart? Or a little deeper, piercing her lungs? He can’t think about it without feeling like he’s going to throw up. _Come on Steve, get it together,_ he tells himself. _It’s what you do for a living._ _You knew this would happen sooner or later_. He’d still rather it was later. Or never.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t exactly the first thing to come to mind when you stepped through the door,” Natasha admits honestly. It really hadn’t. And she didn’t think he would react this badly.

“No, why didn’t you tell me when it happened? I could’ve come back. _Would_ have.”

Natasha pauses, not sure what to say. Clint had told her that Steve would want to know, but she’d ignored him. She hadn’t wanted Steve to drop everything and fly half way around the world just so he could change her bandages and make sure she took pain meds. She could do that by herself just fine, thank you very much. That’s what she’s done all her life.

But then, she realises something. Something she hears every time he tells her he loves her, but hadn’t listened until now.

She doesn’t _have_ to do things by herself anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and truly means it. She’s sorry for not telling him. For being such a blind idiot. He turns back to face her, eyes all full of regret and breaking her heart.

“I should have been there,” he says, guilt weighing his shoulders into a slump. It hurts when he looks away again. “Should have come as back up.”

“Steve, there was nothing you could have done,” she says, trying to reassure him, reaching out to place her hand on his shoulder. She had been the one to tell him there was no need for back up. But he would probably feel even more awful if he _had_ been there and didn’t stop it. “Hardly even felt it anyw-”

 “-What good am I if I can’t even protect the people I love?”

The question hits Natasha hard, a sharp stab of hurt in her chest. Does he really think so little of himself, of his worth?  Can he not see how much the world needs him? How much _she_ needs him?

“I can’t...I can’t lose you,” he says quietly, and she’s never heard him sound so broken.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says firmly, because if she believes it maybe he will too. She cups his face in her hands and kisses him, hard. Tries to pour everything she feels into it, all of her need and desire and god, she can’t believe she’s even thinking it, but all of her love too. She remembers Clint saying that Steve wanted her, just her and nothing else. And even though she still has moments of doubt, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t give to him because it’s no less than he deserves.

Steve can’t breathe. She moves to straddle his lap, the sheets falling away, still kissing him fiercely. It’s searing and intense, makes him ache. He wraps his arms around her tightly, telling himself that she’s _here_ , in his arms and safe. His fingers brush against the pulse on her neck, and the strong, steady beat is strangely reassuring. She’s here, he tells himself again. She’s with him. He makes himself hold onto that thought, because Natasha is one of the strongest people he knows and he trusts her with more than his own life. So if she tells him that she isn’t going anywhere, he has to make himself believe that.

“I wish you knew how much you mean to me,” he says when she breaks away, breathless. He tries not to let his hand linger over the new scar.

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” she says with a small smile that makes his chest ache.

Steve reaches up to bury his hand in Natasha’s hair, pulls her back down for another kiss. Natasha does so greedily, sucking on his lip and swallowing his moans. Once they’re both panting for breath, his skin hot under her hands, she slides herself down on him with a sigh. But this time it’s nothing like before and the build-up is searing, excruciating as she rocks against him. He keeps her tightly pressed against him like he never wants to let go, hardly ever stops kissing her and soon enough she’s trembling on the edge of climax.

Natasha doesn’t know what possesses her to say it then, in that moment. But the words spill out of her lips and onto his before she knows what’s happening. Words she never thought she would use in the same sentence, let alone understand. But it just feels right, and she can’t stop herself.

“ _< I love you, Steve, I love you.>”_

Then she’s quivering, lost in throes of pleasure so intense she wonders if she actually said those words aloud or just in her head because honestly she doesn’t think she knows her own name right now. Steve kisses her through it, a broken groan escaping his throat, his grip tightening as his own release takes over.

Natasha rolls off Steve after a moment, breathless and weak. He lays back and she curls herself under his arm, draping herself over his chest. His pounding heart falls back into a slow, steady rhythm under her ear before either of them speaks.

“Nat?”

“Hmm?” She still feels a little dazed. His fingertips trace small circles on her shoulder.

“What you said just now,” he starts. “Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” she admits quietly, after a pause. So she did say it aloud.

“I was wondering when you’d get around to saying it,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice without even looking up to see it. She swats him lightly on the ribs.

“That was hard for me, you know,” she says defensively. Well, he doesn’t have to know how easily the words slipped out. But that doesn’t mean they were said lightly.

“I know,” he murmurs, his tone sombre now. He plants a kiss on the top of her head, wraps his other arm around her. “I love you,” he tells her, for the thousandth time. Natasha takes a deep breath, swallows thickly.

“I love you too,” she says, for the first.

The words feel heavier this time; carrying a weight on her tongue and her heart. Said with purpose, not just slipping out in the heat of the moment.

He holds her tighter, and doesn’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you THANK YOU once again for your patience and for taking the time to read!!  
> I love you guys so much <3
> 
> As per the last couple of chapters, I will update when I can, but it might be a few weeks again.
> 
> Kudos and comments always appreciated!! ;D


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guuuuuuuyys I am so sorry this took so long to post. This chapter took me way out of my comfort zone of fluff and porn and it took me longer than usual, plus busy real world stuff.  
> So I realised Steve & Nat haven't had a fight yet and I thought it was about time. I tried to angst and there are fight scenes which I have not written in so long. I am super nervous about how it went so please let me know, thank you to heyfrenchfreudiana for beta reading the first draft!
> 
> To thank you for your patience (you guys are amazing) I also did a really really quick illustration at work on my tablet because I had a longer break than usual. I've always wanted to illustrate the chapters but it's hard enough finding time to write the bloody things! Please bare in mind I only spent like 25 mins on it. But it was fun even so :)  
> I will put the link at the bottom of the chapter if you are interested in seeing it

They’re in the hanger in Stark Tower after getting back from a mission turned disaster, just about to step out of the jet. Steve can practically _feel_ the anger rolling off her as Natasha throws down her pilot headset and storms past him out of the jet. They’d been out in the field, carnage and screaming everywhere as the world seemed to collapse around them.

And, to cut a long story short, he’d fucked up. Big time.

Steve hastily follows, ignoring the sharp throbs of pain in his thigh, catching her arm and pulling her around to face him.

“Nat, talk to me,” he urges under his breath, so not to draw too much attention from the other members of the team. She glares at him, wrenching her arm free of his grasp.

“What the hell were you thinking out there?” she hisses. Steve spares a glance back at the others but none of them seem to have noticed them yet, still caught up in their own post-mission routines. He takes a step closer to her, tries to keep his voice quiet and calm.

“I was saving your life, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“What, are you expecting a fucking medal?” she snaps back, voice slightly raised and apparently uncaring of who hears them. “I’m not some damsel in distress. I don’t need your protection.”

“I never said you needed-”

“-You put civilians in danger _,_ Steve,” she said hotly. “Civilians you were supposed to be protecting. People could have been _killed_.”

Steve’s chest feels tight with guilt, partly because she’s right, but mostly because in those few seconds, he hadn’t thought about the civilians at all. There had only been _her._ He _knows_ she isn’t some waif waiting for him to rescue her, that she can handle herself – most of the time better than he can – but he’d reacted without thinking. And now she’s pissed at him. He’s pretty sure the others have started to notice them arguing now, because Clint had started to walk past them only to make an abrupt U-turn back the way he came and Thor stands awkwardly to one side, deeply invested on fiddling with the leather handle on Mjolnir rather than intrude. Steve switches to Russian, keen on privacy but unwilling to let Natasha go yet.

 “< _And what if_ you _had been killed?_ >” he asks, exasperated. _“ <Am I just supposed to watch it happen?_>”

“< _You’re supposed to let me handle it and carry on doing your job!_ >” she cries, temper flaring. A few glances from the others. She looks away, huffs out a short breath. Her hands settle on her hips and she glares back up at him. “ _We had a team and a plan and they would’ve worked just fine if you hadn’t gone charging around doing things without thinking of the consequences_. >”

 Natasha starts to turn to walk away again, but Steve quickly moves to stand between her and the door. She stares straight ahead as if he isn’t there, jaw set. He’s torn between wanting to pull her in his arms and kiss her and wanting to tell her he’ll never apologise for putting her life before his own, even if she doesn’t want him to. But he won’t, not with the others here. Now isn’t the time or the place for them to find out about his and Natasha’s relationship.

“< _Can we just talk about this upstairs?_ >” Steve asks quickly, wanting to get away from the others. She opens her mouth to respond but before she can, Tony interrupts.

 “Woah, Cap, when did you start speaking Russian?” he calls, spreading his arms wide as mechanical hands reach out of nowhere to pull pieces of his suit away.

 _When I realised I was falling for Nat,_ his brain supplies instantly.

“Not the time, Tony,” he says tightly instead, turning back to Natasha. She glares at him, jaw set and looking like she wanted to say something else but won’t now Tony’s interrupted them. She pushes him back with a hand on his shoulder and stalks past him out of the flight deck instead. Tony gives a low whistle once she’s in the main Tower, out of earshot.

“And here I thought the Cold War ended in ‘91,” he says with a pointed look at Steve, who furrows his brow in response. Tony turns to the others. “Did it actually get colder in here or is it just me?”

“Shut up, Stark,” Steve says, mind too preoccupied with Natasha to come up with any of his usual witty retorts. Tony raises his hands in mock self-defence and strolls to one side, picking up a few tools from a workbench and starting to tinker with a piece of his suit. Steve starts after Natasha but suddenly Thor is there, putting a firm hand in the centre of his chest and halting his path.

“Leave her be, Steven,” he says kindly, his voice a rumble. “She will no doubt return to her senses with hindsight on the day’s events. The battle was won, in the end. Give her time to see it.”

Steve’s gaze flickers to Thor, then back to the door Natasha had left through. He considers ignoring Thor but deep down he knows he’s right. With a grimace, Steve nods and lets out a deep breath. Thor offers him a reassuring smile, squeezes his shoulder briefly.

“Thank you. For earlier,” Steve says, shortly but sincerely. In saving Natasha’s life he would have given his own had Thor not shown up at the last second and saved him. The god smiles widely.

“Recompense for all the times you have aided me, on the field and away from it,” he says, before turning to depart. But he pauses, glances back. “You should not tarry here. See to your wounds.”

Steve nods, because he’s definitely feeling at least a few broken ribs, and the messy slash on his leg will need cleaning and stitches if it’s going to heal properly. His throat still burns from where the air had been choked out of him. Thor leaves with a small nod of approval and a slight smile, crimson cape billowing behind him. Steve mentally debates going after Natasha again, despite Thor’s advice, but a voice jolts him from his thoughts.

 “Get your shit together Rogers,” Clint hisses as he walks past. “You’re just gonna end up driving her away if you keep pulling stunts like that. Next time you might not be so lucky and one day it’s gonna end up costing someone, even if it’s not one of us.”

He could always count on Clint to be blunt, and, he’ll admit, he’s usually right. Everyone knows Natasha hates people thinking she needs to be saved. Steve had acted impulsively, and things could have easily turned out worse because of his recklessness. But when he’d seen Natasha, and that…that _thing_ moments away from ending her life, he hadn’t been able to do anything else, consequences be damned.

 

* * *

 

Natasha’s back slides down the bathroom door as soon as she’s closed it, a shuddering breath escaping her. Dragging a hand back through her hair, she waits for her heartbeat to slow to a normal rate. Now she’s away from Steve suddenly she doesn’t feel as angry; she feels exhausted and weak. There are tears, hot and stinging and _foreign_ in her eyes but she refuses to let them fall. Blinking them back determinedly, she stands and goes over to the sink. A splash of cold water on her face clears her senses a little. But now everything seems too vivid in her head again, the screams too fresh.

 It’s hard to pinpoint exactly the moment she’d known she was most likely going to die. Maybe it was when she forgot to check over her shoulder because she’d glanced over at Steve. Maybe it was when falling debris had knocked her down, and when she came to a few moments later, her leg was trapped between rubble and steel. Maybe it was when one of the monsters that were destroying the city noticed her struggle to get free of the wreckage, or maybe it was when her bullets weren’t having any kind of effect on the beast anymore as it advanced on her, because these monsters quickly adapted to whatever threat they were facing.

She’d never been afraid of dying, before. But it had felt different then, in that moment. Wrong. Nevertheless, it was happening anyway, the monster growing ever closer and with no apparent way out. She scrambled, searching for something, _anything_ she could use in her favour, either against the monster or to dislodge her leg. She remembers thinking it was a little pathetic, to die like this, when she’d gotten herself out of far more dire situations without even breaking a sweat.

But then Steve’s shield came out of nowhere, lodged itself in the beast’s shoulder. It shrieked, recoiling back and Natasha looked across in time to see Steve running through the devastation faster than she’d ever seen, leaping over rubble and racing to her side. He’d planted himself between her and the monster, and it was like being a spectator in her own body, unable to do anything as the beast lunged forward and knocked Steve into a wall with such force his body left a dent in the concrete. She remembers screaming Steve’s name when the monster leapt again, but he hadn’t been able to respond.

He’d been too busy clawing at the thing’s hand around his neck, like a vice, gasping for breath and kicking out against it, but it was no use. Finally, she’d managed to free her leg from the rubble, staggering to her feet. She’d stumbled forward, firing bullet after bullet into the monster’s flesh even though she knew it was useless. He was still too far away, and she wasn’t quick enough. She remembers the look in his eyes as they’d started to glaze over, as he stopped kicking…

 _No_ , she thinks to herself firmly, gripping the sink basin and forcing herself back into the present. _He’s alive_. 

It hurts too much to think about what would have happened if had Thor not shown up at the last second as she reached for Steve a moment too late. About how she would have had to live in a world where Steve Rogers had given up his life for _her,_ because she hadn’t been good enough. Hadn’t been strong enough.

He’d been reckless, like he always is, rushing into danger without thinking. He’d been stupid and rash and even though she might not be breathing if he hadn’t done so, people could have died and she could have fucking _lost_ him. She chokes on a breath and pushes back the tears again, straightening up and looking at her reflection in the cabinet mirror above the sink. She clenches her jaw.

Black Widow does not cry. She does not break.

Not for the first time in her life, Natasha decides it’s easier to be angry.

 

* * *

 

Four days pass before Steve sees her again. After the first day he gave up trying to find her and resigned himself to waiting until she stopped evading him. He finally stumbles upon her in the gym, beating seven shades of Sunday into a training dummy. She doesn’t even glance up to him as he enters the room, but doesn’t make a move to leave either. He supposes that’s a good sign, because he has no doubt she already knows he’s there. Taking a deep breath, he crosses the room.

“We need to talk,” he says as he reaches her side, and she delivers a shattering kick to the dummy. He brings his hands up to rest on his hips as he regards her, and her gaze doesn’t even flicker away from her target.

“What’s there to say?” Another kick. His chest feels tight. Funny, he’s forgotten what it’s like to feel unsure around her. To not be able to tell what she’s thinking.

“Natasha,” he starts carefully, taking another step towards her. “I know what I did was rash. I wasn’t thinking-”

“-No, you didn’t. You never _think_ ,” she says sharply. Okay, that hurt. Steve knows that he’s no stranger to acting on impulse, but to hear her say it like that, with such _malice,_ sends a stab of hurt through him, a flare of anger _._ He’d only been trying to do what he was built for – to fight, to defend. To _protect_.

“You want an apology, is that it?” he asks angrily. “You’re not going to get one. If I had to do it again then I would, in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t need your protection!” she snaps, and Steve only just manages to bring up his arm in time to deflect the blow she throws at him. “You should have followed the plan and defended the civilians!”  


Steve ducks down to dodge another punch, senses suddenly on full alert and the flare of anger forgotten. He doesn’t strike back, just defends himself as she pushes him back across the training matt.

“Clint was still with the civilians, they weren’t defenceless,” Steve protests in-between blows, though he knows that shouldn’t have made a difference. He twists to the side, narrowly avoiding a punch to his torso. “I was trying to save you,” he pants out. He grunts in pain as she lands a kick to his still-sore ribs, stumbling back.

“We’re not supposed to put ourselves first. The _people_ come first.”

Natasha catches him off guard, still holding his ribs, takes a running leap at him and manages to hook a leg around his shoulder. But before she can move he reaches behind him, locks his grip onto her forearms and throws her off. In the split second between straddling his shoulders and hitting the floor, she turns the fall into a roll across the matt. She watches him brace himself for her next attack – he’s on the defensive – squaring his shoulders and distributing his weight between solidly planted feet. Natasha can feel the tears stinging at her eyes again, her vision going slightly blurred. She’s managed to keep them at bay so far, refused to let them fall. Refused to let herself break, but they threaten to spill over again against her will. She runs at him, feigns a punch to the right but Steve sees it coming and catches her wrist. Holding her arm in place, she twists away but he wraps his hand around her other wrist too and forces her to look at him.

“I can’t stand by and watch you get hurt,” he starts, and for all the strength he’s holding her with he suddenly looks very small and lost. “You know it’s not because I think you’re incapable. I just…” He swallows thickly, trying to find the words. “Natasha, I can’t watch you _die_. Not while I’m still breathing.”

Natasha wrenches her wrists free of his grasp, turning away because suddenly she can’t look at him. All she can see is Steve being thrown against the building again, struggling for breath and being choked by that _thing_ , terror and grief cutting through her anger. She spins back around to face him.

“What, you think you’re the only one in this relationship that feels that way?” she cries, and she struggles to keep her voice steady. He’s standing so close, looking kind of broken and he doesn’t try to stop her when the ball of her fist lands on his chest. “What if I can’t watch _you_ die, huh? What if I don’t care about putting civilians first or the stupid plan?” He’s quiet and still, letting her rain blows down on his chest. But she’s shaking so much and they’re too weak to leave any kind of damage. She can feel her strength fading by the second, all of her carefully controlled defences crumbling away. “What if I can’t let you sacrifice yourself for _me_? What if _I_ can’t lose _you_?”

Then she breaks and she’s sobbing into his shirt, unable to hold it back any longer. She can’t remember the last time she cried but it feels like decades worth of tears are coming out now and she clings to him as if she’s drowning.

“You told me once you trusted me to save your life,” she chokes out between sobs, her words muffled by his chest as she buries her face into his t-shirt. “But I couldn’t, I wasn’t-I wasn’t good enough.”

And there it is, just like that. The reason she’s been hiding behind anger the past few days. She’s never felt like this, never been in a situation where she needs someone this much before and she feels sick. Fuck, why can’t she stop crying? He just wraps his arms around her, strong and warm and murmuring things like “ _I’m sorry,_ ” and “ _It’s not your fault_ , and “ _I’m here, it’s okay_ ”, pressing his lips to the top of her head and running his fingers through her hair.

Steve heart is tearing itself apart in his chest, because he never thought he’d see her like this. He could never have even imagined it, but he knows that the reality of it is so much worse than anything he could have made up. And there isn’t anything he can do apart from hold her and let her get it all out. He sinks down slowly to sit the floor, taking her with him. She chokes on the foreign tears; all short, staccato breaths and trembling hands as she curls herself into his lap. It feels like an eternity before she’s able to draw in a long, shuddering breath and the tears start subside. She rests her head on his chest, and for a while they don’t move, don’t even speak until her breathing is back to normal. He doesn’t let go of her, he doesn’t dare.

“I’m sorry for kicking you in the ribs,” she says, looking up at him. Her voice is steady, and the only reason he can tell she’d been crying (aside from the vivid memory and her cries still ringing in his ears) is the pink puffiness around her eyes. He lets out a short laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

“You’ve inflicted worse before,” he jokes, and Natasha feels the low rumble of his voice in his chest under her hands. He brings a hand up to her jaw, tilts her head up a little. She sighs when his lips brush hers, hesitant at first but soon tender and all-consuming when she pulls him closer.

“I love you,” she murmurs against his lips, and she can feel his heart stutter under her palms and his arms tighten around her because she doesn’t say it often.

“I love you too,” he replies softly, and this time his lips are searing, coaxing her mouth open to kiss her deeper. He breaks away when they’re both gasping for breath, and she lays her head back on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, thudding against his ribcage under her ear.

“I do trust you,” Steve says in the silence. “More than anything.”

Natasha doesn’t respond but Steve’s content to stay like this, just holding her close if this is what she needs. His fingers trace small shapes on her shoulder, and he lets the scent of her hair conditioner wash over him as he nuzzles against her crimson tresses. She exhales, slow and controlled, her breath hot on his collarbone. After a while she speaks, voice quiet and far away.

 “Take me to bed,” she says, not a command but definitely not a question.

Steve thinks he understands. He nods and helps her to her feet – he can count on one finger the amount of times she’s let him do that – and she holds his hand as he leads her out of the gym and up to his rooms. Thankfully they don’t bump into anyone else on the way, and it feels almost familiar again, tension ebbing from her shoulders with every step. Touch has always seemed to ground her, the tangible physicality of it conveying things that she could never explain with words. He’d figured that out early on in their relationship.

So he takes his time undressing her and trailing his lips over every inch of her skin, because it feels like with every second of his attention, of his touch, she seems to breathe just that little bit easier.

* * *

I am a tech noob so drawing is here if you want to see!!! --->

<http://spanglecap.tumblr.com/post/117546517043/i-havent-drawn-people-in-so-long-omg-a-really>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, thank you sooooooooo so much for reading!! <3 <3  
> I hope everything made sense, fight scenes are my weakness.  
> Again, my profuse apologies but the next chapter is probably a few weeks away. You can keep up with me over on tumblr at http://spanglecap.tumblr.com/
> 
> Comments and kudos always welcome! ;D


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so much longer than I thought it would thank you so much for being so lovely and patient <3 <3  
> I won't ramble on here (more at the end) and keep you waiting much longer.  
> Apologies for any grammar mistakes at the start or end
> 
> So as the last chapter was a bit angsty I thought I would make this one more fun! There is a lot of porn in this one  
> I won't keep you any longer, enjoy!

“Cancelled? What happened in the last twenty minutes?”

Natasha frowns, pursing her lips, because since when did her kind of missions just get ‘cancelled’? She’d just been doing the final checks through her equipment and was about to head down to the jet when Maria had called.

“Well,” Maria replies through the video comm link. “More like postponed,” she explains. “The guy you were meant to extract has been assassinated, and we’ve already got a group claiming responsibility. There’s no reason to send you in right now, it's too messy.”

“You don’t even need the group taking down?” It feels strange, to be cut off from a mission so suddenly like this. Detached somehow. Maria shakes her head.

“We need more time to gather intel. It’d be a waste of resources to send you in without a plan.”

“You know I don’t need a plan to finish the job, Maria,” Natasha says lightly. Maria smiles knowingly.

“I know. Take the rest of the day off,” she instructs, ending the call and leaving no room for Natasha to argue.

With a sigh, Natasha drops her small backpack to the floor, deciding to leave it packed until she knows when she’ll be called out again and contemplates what to do with her day.

“Jarvis, where is Captain Rogers?” she asks.

“His current location is the garage level, Agent Romanoff,” Jarvis replies cheerily.

Thanking the A.I., Natasha quickly changes out of her field gear and into some comfier civilian clothing and heads down to find Steve. They haven’t been able to spend more than a couple of days at a time together lately, and so if her mission getting cancelled means she gets even half a day more with him then she’s not going to complain.

The elevator seems to take an eternity getting from her rooms to the garage, but when the doors open Natasha spots Steve pretty much straight away, engrossed in working on his bike.

He leans forward, fiddles with something in between the handlebars. After a moment he switches on the ignition and the bike gives a low rumble as the engine comes to life. He revs the handlebars and Natasha swears she can feel the roar of it in her bones even from the doorway. She walks over to him, taking in all the small details she’s going to miss while she’s away.

It’s the kind of sight that would make a lesser woman tremble and weak at the knees. Wearing one of those ridiculously tight t-shirts, those long, muscular legs of his straddle his bike in blue jeans that are so well-fitting it should be illegal. There’s something inherently masculine about the oil and grease smudged over his hands and clothes, a lick of it over his cheekbone. He sits back, rests his hands on his thighs at her approach, teeth flashing as his lips curl into a warm smile.

“You been down here all day?” she says as she approaches him.

“Pretty much. Pass me that towel?” he asks, nodding in the direction of a workbench she just passed. She tosses it to him and he sets about cleaning the oil from his hands. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a mission? Not that I’m unhappy to see you.”

“It got cancelled,” she explains briefly.

Running her fingertips over his bicep up to his shoulders, she swings her leg over the bike to sit behind him, her thighs bracketing his own. The combined scent of him and gasoline makes her dizzy as she wraps her arms around his thick torso, his body temptingly warm. As always. She presses herself into the heat and notices how he tenses up, ever so slightly.

“We should go for a ride sometime,” she says, tilting her head back to rest her chin against his shoulder blade. He glances back at her as he finishes cleaning the engine grease from his hands, tossing the towel to one side.

“Yeah? I got no plans this afternoon, if you want,” he replies lightly, a hand moving to cover her own. Natasha smiles devilishly.

“Well _I_ have plans,” she smirks, and a thrill goes down her spine at the way his breath hitches when her hand slides under his t-shirt to drag her nails over the corded muscles there. He groans when she trails her lips over his neck, breath ghosting across his skin and her heart swells at the way he shivers in pleasure. Those long eyelashes of his flutter shut, bites his lip when she trails her other hand down to the sudden bulge in his jeans. “And they definitely involve you.” 

Natasha hadn’t actually planned anything before she’d come down to the garage. But she damn well knows how to seize an opportunity then she sees one.

“Here?” Steve gasps, stomach fluttering somewhere between apprehension and arousal when she reaches both arms around him to unbuckle his belt. He stills her movement, a hand around her wrist, but he knows he’s already fighting a losing battle judging from how easily she removes herself from his grasp and pops the button at the waist of his jeans.

“Afraid we’ll get caught?” she teases, and a throb of want goes through him at the sound of her voice in his ear, all low and smooth and full of wicked promises. She slides the zipper down. Already he can feel heat rising to his cheeks at the thought of it. Someone could walk in on them at any second, but, god help him, he _wants_ this. Wants _her_. Too much to care about anything else.

“I just – What if someone comes in?” he gasps breathlessly, uselessly. He isn’t even trying to stop her anymore, has to bite his lip again when her fingertips toy with the elastic of his boxers. He sucks in a sharp breath when she slips her hand inside and wraps it firmly around his length, aching hard and already leaking precum.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it,” she purrs. “About having me on every surface in this place.” Her grip on him tightens, and he chokes back a moan. “I have,” she adds with a soft nip of teeth on his earlobe. The ache of longing in his body seems to triple at the admittance. He has too. A thousand images flash through his mind of all the times he’s imagined exactly that. Over the counter in the communal kitchen. Up against the fridge, cool metal on scorching skin. On one of the ridiculously huge sofas on the recreation floor, and behind the bar. The locker room. An elevator. The jet, in the pilot seat. He’d even been tempted in the middle of a fucking empty corridor once. And yes. He’s thought about down here in the garage too. The workbench. Maybe in one of the cars. She nips at his neck, one hand slipping under his t-shirt again while the other slowly works his length. How is it she always knows exactly how to make reason abandon him? The last of his resolve crumbles.

“I want you here,” he manages to choke out, and he can hardly believe what he’s about to ask for. “On the bike.”

Natasha lets out a quiet mewl at his words, a soft, sudden, _needy_ sound which makes him think that he’s actually managed to surprise her as well as himself with the request. He isn’t quite sure how they’ll go about it yet, but apparently Natasha has some kind of idea because without any warning, she releases her hold on him, slips off the bike and kicks off her ankle boots.

“Shirt. Take it off,” she instructs, pushing her jeans own her hips. Steve is all too eager to oblige, pulling it over his head and not caring where it lands when he discards it. Her underwear comes off with her jeans and before he knows what’s happening she’s swinging her leg back over the bike to straddle his lap and lining him up with a certain sense of urgency that sets his blood on fire.

Natasha can’t breathe. She’s more than slick enough, but there’s still a familiar, overwhelming stretch as she sinks herself down on him, inch by inch. Faintly, she hears him swear under his breath, feels his fingers grasp at her flesh. He always feels biggest when she’s on top, but she comes fastest like this, pressing her clit down against him with every roll of her hips.

“Is this even gonna work?” Steve asks through gritted teeth as Natasha finally settles into his lap, pausing to adjust to his size. She closes her eyes, feeling light headed because no matter how many times they do this she can never get used to it, never entirely anticipate how _full_ she feels with him inside her, thick and hard and…she takes a deep breath to steady herself for a moment.

“Don’t see why not,” she answers once she can think again, noting that his feet are still planted firmly either side of the bike and the kickstand is down. Running her palms up his bare chest to settle around his neck, he pulls her flush against him, hands heavy and warm on her flesh when he pushes up the tank top she’s still wearing to feel her skin on his.

Steve groans when Natasha starts to move against him, waves of pleasure making his head swim. She leans down to kiss him and her lips are desperate as she picks up the pace a little, grasping at his shoulders and moaning into his mouth. If anything, the bike’s suspension actually _aids_ the roll of her hips as she grinds herself down on him and he struggles to think straight.

“Definitely…this _definitely_ works,” he gasps, and she manages half a laugh in response, a few small sounds of agreement tumbling from her lips. For what feels the thousandth time, Steve is once again struck by how beautiful she looks like this, when she’s using his body, taking what she needs from him. He should probably be concerned about how willingly – no, how _gladly_ he’ll give it to her. Anything she asks for. _Everything_. He knows it’ll get him into trouble one day but he can’t bring himself to care, not when her cheeks are flushed pink and those plush lips of hers part in a soft moan. Not with the way she gasps when his fingers knot in her hair and he mashes their lips together, all heat and teeth and want. His heart hammers in his chest and he holds her tighter when she’s so breathless she can barely kiss him, body tense and trembling. She’s close – he memorised the signs months ago – and she’s so beautiful, head falling back to expose her pale throat which he can’t help sealing his lips over.

Any second now, any second and she’ll be falling apart in his arms. He doesn’t even care about his own release at this point, just wants _hers_ , because it’s always the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen and he doesn’t want to miss a second even though he already committed the way it looks to memory a long time ago – but then there’s a soft alarm echoing through the room – Jarvis gently alerting them that someone is approaching the garage in the least intrusive way possible.

“Shit,” he huffs out, eyes darting to the door. It’s a system they put in place with Jarvis early on, after a few close calls and flustered excuses, with Clint as the only exemption. But they had never taken things this far outside of their rooms before and suddenly Steve finds himself panicking that there isn’t enough time to even put his shirt back on before the elevator doors opened. If someone walks in on them now, not only would they witness something Steve would definitely rather stay private, but their entire relationship would be exposed. Funny how that hadn’t seemed to matter so much a few seconds ago when they’d been alone.

Making sure Natasha’s legs are wrapped around his waist, he swings his leg over the bike and rolls, landing to the floor on his back with a thump, Natasha still on top of him just as the elevator doors slide open. Natasha bites her lip to stifle a laugh and buries her face in his chest, a sharp contrast to how mortified Steve is feeling, heart racing and not in the way it had been a few minutes ago. From this angle, Steve’s hoping and praying that the bike and some of the work benches will hide them from view of whoever just came in. They lay still for a moment, listening to the voices in mid conversation.

“I’m just sayin’, I think the left wing could use a little tweaking.” It’s Sam’s voice. Natasha shifts above him, and Steve quickly brings his hands up to her hips, keeping her firmly in place before he lets a moan slip that could give them away.

“And _I’m_ just saying that that wing is flawless, Wilson.” Stark. The voices seem to be growing a little quieter, and Steve hopes the two men are headed to where Tony’s suits are kept, in the opposite direction to him and Natasha.

“It’s okay to admit you made a mistake, genius,” Sam taunts idly.

“Look, I know it’s hard for your little birdbrain to keep up, but trust me, that suit is perfection,” Tony replies smoothly. “And J, can we get some tunes in here?”

“Of course, sir,” the A.I. answers, the heavy drums and guitars of Tony’s signature 80s rock filling the room. Steve turns his attention back to Natasha, Tony and Sam’s conversation harder to pick out through the music but definitely still audible.

“What do we do?” he asks under his breath, still feeling more than a little panicked. Natasha doesn’t even seem fazed by how close they’d come to getting caught, still trying not to laugh when she raises her head of his chest to look up at him. Maybe they could gather their clothes and-

“-Well…” Natasha starts, trailing her lips over his jaw. “They clearly can’t see us, so why don’t we pick up where we left off?” Her lips find his and for a moment Steve can’t help but kiss back until his senses clear a little.

“Nat, we can’t, Jesus, they’re right next to us,” he says, keeping his voice low, but she only moves her hips again, inhaling sharply. Loudly, at least to his ears. Steve rolls them over abruptly and pins her down in an attempt to keep her still, needing every bit of his brain focused to try to figure out what the _hell_ to do.

“I was so _close_ ,” she whispers, arching her back underneath him, desperately trying to get some kind of friction between them. Already he can feel his resolve deserting him again at the slight movement, a jolt of pleasure shooting up his spine. “< _Please, I need to come,_ >” she says in Russian, pulling him into a kiss. He feels dizzy, because she _knows_ what the Russian does to him and already the fact that two other people share the same room seems to be fading in importance. “< _God, I need you, Steve, please,_ >” she mumbles into his mouth, breath coming in quick gasps, hot on his skin.

_Anything she asks for._

That’s what he’d told himself only moments ago, right? He’d needed her to come just then as much as she wants to come now, and he’d been willing to do anything to make sure it happened. He’s a little surprised to realise that he still _wants_ this, still wants to make her shudder with pleasure and fall apart even with two other people in the room that could stumble upon them any second.

His heart is racing and he’s even more surprised to find that deep down some part of him even wants to know that risk of getting caught, the thought of it making him ache in a way that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. There’s always been something about Natasha that has him thinking and saying and _doing_ things he never thought he’d do and before he can stop himself he’s slamming his hips into hers and she’s biting down on his shoulder to keep from crying out.

Keeping quiet is the hardest thing Natasha has ever had to do. The walls of their quarters are soundproofed as standard so she’s never even tried to hold back with Steve. There’s never been a need to. She _can_ keep quiet, be silent if she wants. She can fake a moan or an orgasm better than anyone, but the noises she makes with Steve are real and they’re _his_ and she’s always wanted him to know he’s the only one who can get those sounds from her. So it turns out that keeping quiet is much harder than she thought it was going to be. As her release starts to build, coiled in the pit of her stomach, she knows it’s only a matter of time and eventually a loud moan is ripped from her throat that she has no chance of holding back.

Almost instantly Steve stills, pulled out so far the tip of him is barely inside her. She bites back a whimper, suddenly feeling far too empty but there’s a hand pressing down on her hips and keeping her in place.

“Did you hear that?” she faintly hears Stark say.

“I didn’t hear anything,” comes Sam’s reply. And then, much closer, Steve’s voice.

“< _If you’re not quiet, I’ll have to stop_ ,>” he murmurs in her ear, voice low. She tries to stop herself but a small noise of protest escapes her, quickly muffled by his lips. He pulls back after a second. “< _Quiet, remember?_ >”

Natasha nods, a throb of want going through her at his words. Since that time in the kitchen after they hadn’t seen each other in two months he’s been a little rougher with her than usual sometimes and it feels like every so often another sliver of his control slips away, as if he’s testing just how far he can push it before it gets too much for her. A firmer hand, or a soft order instead of request every now and again. Marks that last for a week instead of a couple of days. She doesn’t even think he realises he’s doing it sometimes. But she _definitely_ isn’t complaining, because sometimes she doesn’t need the Steve that’s gentle and considerate, the Steve that spends hours kissing and caressing her. Not that she doesn’t enjoy that – she does, very much so – but sometimes she needs the Steve that holds her down. The Steve that makes her forget herself and only remember that she belongs to him, and that he belongs to her. The Steve that likes to fuck hard and then kiss tenderly afterwards, holding her close and soft while her mind is still numb.

And right now is one of those times.

Sinking himself back inside her, Natasha holds her breath because she’s pretty sure that’s the only way she can keep quiet when he starts to thrust into her, all long, lush, so fucking _deep_ strokes that have her seeing stars and only get harder and quicker. The only reason Natasha realises she must have been letting some sounds slip out is because he moves to cover her mouth with his hand. He presses a few kisses to her neck, just below her earlobe and reminds her to be quiet and _fuck_ , the feeling of her moans being muffled by his palm shouldn’t turn her on so much but it does and she’s so close to coming she could scream. But he wants her to be silent and she can still hear Tony and Sam nearby so when she finally tumbles over the edge of release it’s with shuddering gasps, scratches down his back and almost a few tears. She feels her strength ebbing away to weak limbs, and Steve, strong as ever, looks down at her with sweat on his brow and a flustered smile on his face. Taking his hand slowly away from her mouth to settle on her neck, thumb brushing her jaw, he dips his head down to kiss her, so lightly it tingles over her lips.

“< _Beautiful,_ >” he murmurs, and the praise sends unexpected warmth spreading through her chest. “< _You were perfect._ >”

Steve spends a few more moments kissing her softly, and she tries to kiss back as best as she can through panting breaths. But something seems to divert his attention, and he raises his head and looks to the side suddenly. It takes her a few moments to gather her thoughts enough and roll her head over to see what distracted him.

One of Stark’s robots.

What’s its name again? It’s wearing a paper cone hat, with a large letter ‘D’ scrawled on it in marker pen. That’s right. Dum-E. Looking at them, she supposes – there’s no definite eye, just a small lens – and holding Steve’s shirt in its mechanical hand. The arm rotates slightly, almost like the thing is tilting its head, and Steve hasn’t moved a millimetre, probably still trying to figure out what to do about their unexpected audience.

“Dum-E! Get your ass over here!” she hears Stark yell, before he continues at a more normal volume. “I swear to god that is the most useless robot in the world – no – the entire universe.”

The robot swivels around at the command, and Steve quickly reaches out to snatch his shirt back before it has chance to trundle away still holding it. Dum-E slowly rolls away towards where Stark is working and leaves them alone. Steve watches it go and when it’s out of view his head falls forward with a drawn out groan.

“How long do you think it was there?” Natasha asks, trying not to laugh.

“I don’t want to think about it,” Steve mumbles into her neck, wishing the floor would swallow them whole. Natasha lets out a small laugh, before choking the rest back down her throat. Steve raises his head again to look at her, bewildered.

“Do you not think it’s even a little bit funny?” she laughs. “That it was the robot who found us?”

“No, I don’t think it’s funny,” he says, still a little mortified. But she’s still smiling up at him and his features soften into a smile, chest warm. He bumps his nose against hers. “But have I ever told you how beautiful you are when you laugh?”

“You might have mentioned it once or twice,” Natasha says smugly, and his smile only broadens against her lips when he kisses her again. He pulls away, long before she’s ready for him to do so.

“We should probably...put some clothes on or something. I could keep going but who knows which robot’s gonna find us next.”

Natasha lets out another small laugh, but knows that he’s probably right. Even so, she indulges herself with another slow kiss from him first. Steve chooses that moment to ease himself from her body, and Natasha lets out a breath she doesn’t realise she’s holding until he’s fully out of her. Another brief kiss, and he rolls off her to a half sitting position instead of standing up, wanting to keep from view. He tosses her panties to her with a grin and she slips them on while he sets about tucking himself back into his boxers, hitching his jeans up from halfway down his hips.

“You didn’t come yet?” she asks, still feeling a little empty without his body in hers.

“I don’t think now is really the time,” he says. “Besides, I-ah!” He trails off suddenly, because Natasha already has her hand wrapped around his erection, has her tongue and lips sliding over the tip of him because there’s no way she’s letting him leave this garage feeling anything less than utterly _wrecked_. “Nat, what…what are you doing?” he gasps, hands gently pushing at her shoulders. Natasha leans back and looks up at him, forgoing any kind of sarcastic response about what she is so obviously doing in favour of one much more fitting.

“ _If you’re not quiet, I’ll have to stop_ ,>” she teases, echoing his own words from earlier.

Steve nearly chokes on the moan that falls from his lips when Natasha takes him into her mouth again. It always feels like the slightest touch from her can make him fall apart in seconds and right now is no different. Though nothing will ever come close to the feeling of his hips grinding into hers, whenever she goes down on him it just feels so unbelievably _intense_. There’s nothing to concentrate on apart from the way her full lips look stretched around his cock and how her tongue swirls over him, the way her cheeks hollow and the soft noises she makes that send shudders through his entire body…he bites the side of his hand to muffle another moan.

While usually he has her pleasure to think about and keep him grounded, this is just about _his_ pleasure and sometimes it’s a little overwhelming. One of her hands works its way up to his torso and her touch is scorching. It feels like he can’t get enough air to his lungs and he needs something to hold onto, _anything_ , so he reaches down and knots a fistful of her hair in his fingers, being careful not to pull too much even while he can feel his control slipping away.

Natasha loves the way Steve looks like this. Breathing in laboured gasps, his breath hitches every now and again, a choked out groan. A pink flush works its way down from his cheekbones to his chest, body all tense and hard lines of muscle. He drags a hand down his face, eyelashes fluttering shut to dust the top of his cheeks as he winds a fistful of her hair around his hand, keeping her in place but letting her stay in control. Lifting his head to look down at her, when their gazes meet he swears under his breath before his hips jerk up, spine arching. His head drops back to the floor, jaw slack and lips parted in a soft gasp. Natasha’s heart pounds in her chest when he manages to choke out her name, and he’s coming down her throat with a string of half curses and broken moans. She swallows him all down, keeps going until he’s pulling her up his body to kiss her breathlessly. She settles herself above him, knowing he can take all of her weight without any trouble.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he pants against her lips, but there’s a faint smile on his face as he tells her so she doesn’t think it’s a bad thing.

“There are worse ways to go,” she murmurs playfully, and he wraps his arms around her with a laugh. He’s warm, skin a little sweaty but Natasha isn’t complaining, leaning in for another kiss.

“J, is that wrench over on the workbench by the bikes?” Natasha hears Tony ask Jarvis. They both instantly freeze.

“It is, sir,” Jarvis replies. Steve’s expression resembles that of a deer in headlights.

“I got it,” they hear Sam say. “I’m still faster than that robot.”

“Shit shit shit,” Steve curses, quickly moving to fasten up his jeans. They don’t get much further than that before Sam is a couple of strides away from the workbench and Steve stays still, a ludicrous notion going through his head that somehow if they aren’t moving Sam won’t see them. For a second, Sam does actually look for a wrench on the work surface, before he (inevitably) notices Steve, and Natasha still half on top of him.

For a moment, none of them speak. Until-

“-You kinky son of a bitch,” Sam says, taking in their flushed, half undressed and probably somewhat fucked out appearance.

“What?” Stark yells back. Steve desperately shakes his head at Sam, imploring _don’t tell Tony_ , and Natasha gives him a glare that would make a Frost Giant run for the hills.

“I, uh…I found it,” Sam says loudly, picking up the wrench. He clears his throat. "Found _somethin'_  alright," he mutters low enough for only them to hear with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. Natasha jerks her head in the direction of Stark, a clear indicator that he should leave. Sam’s expression seems to say ‘and-when-the-hell-did-this-happen-by-the-way’ but thankfully he knows better than to challenge Natasha and walks away with a shrug.

Steve realises he’d been holding his breath the entire time Sam was there and exhales heavily, not sure how to feel about having been found out after so many months of keeping up their secret. After so long hiding their feelings for one another. At the start, they’d kept things between themselves purely out of a need for privacy until they figured out what they meant to each other. And somehow it had just carried on, the ducking into corridors for a kiss and meeting up between missions in secret. It’s been so long now the secrecy had just become normal for them.

“Well I guess Sam knows now,” Natasha sighs. Steve nods.

“I guess so,” he says. Steve had wondered at one point if it would be better to not tell anyone at all. But he feels a smile tugging at his lips, because actually, Sam knows about them too now and it doesn’t feel all that bad.

Steve hopes that from the way Natasha threads her fingers through his and smiles down at him, that she feels the same way too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One by one, the team are slowly finding out about Steve and Nat! Little steps  
> Also some of you may notice I have upped the chapter count from 10 to 12 :)
> 
> Why has nobody done bike porn for these two I have not read any others. Or semi public sex and almost getting caught. Please send me links if you know of any. Give me all the bike porn
> 
> As always, thank you so so much for reading!! I can not thank you guys enough for your unending patience with my slow updates the last few chapters, but all my uni stuff is over now so I am hoping to start updating more regularly now! :)  
> I've said it a hundred times but I will say it a hundred more, thank you!  
> Comments & kudos always welcome
> 
> See you next time!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering, yes I am still alive! I'm really sorry for the delay on this one but I have a valid reason I think. If you follow me over on tumblr you may have already read that just over a month ago I was involved in a pretty serious car crash and one of the injuries I came out with was a concussion that made it pretty hard to even read for a while, let alone write. So that was very difficult to get back into. (Also why I have not been very active on here commenting etc. I have so much fic to catch up on) Another is that this was just a super hard chapter for me to write due to the content.
> 
> But anyway, thank you for your patience and sticking with me, your support has meant a lot to me the last few weeks! I am so grateful to you guys, I won't keep you waiting much longer
> 
> Beta'd by heyfrenchfreudiana because my brain is shit right now. Much love to you <3
> 
> One more thing before we begin, this is an official trigger warning right here, just to be safe. This chapter contains discussion of abortion and sterility. And lots of ANGST

Expecting. With child. Eating for two.

No matter how many different ways she phrases it, Natasha still can’t quite seem to wrap her head around the idea of it. No, wait. The _reality_ of it. The weight of it seems to press down on her, suffocating.

Pregnant.

At first she thought she was just sick. Really, that should have been her first clue that something was different, because Natasha just doesn’t get ‘sick’. Wounded, battered, and almost blown to pieces, yes. But sick? Not since she was a child. Not since she was given a poor imitation of the serum Steve had coursing through his veins back when she’d still been with the Red Room. So she’d brushed it off, blamed it on something she ate, or maybe it was just a severe, bizarre case of jet jag. Told herself she’d be better in a few days.

But days had turned into a week. Occasional dizziness and vomiting turned into full on _hours_ of shaking nausea and griping stomach cramps at a time. The weariness turned into exhaustion and niggling headaches into migraines. A week turned into three and Steve stopped listening when she told him she could handle it. He’d all but dragged her to Doctor Fine and she’d submitted to every test he could throw at her. Something was wrong and she couldn’t let herself ignore it any longer.

So here she is, a week later, sat at a kitchen bar stool clutching three now slightly crumpled sets of test results, all of which tell her that she’s ten weeks pregnant and feeling even dizzier than usual. And yet, even knowing the cause, she doesn’t feel any better. In fact, she feels worse. Something still feels wrong.

It shouldn’t – _isn’t_ – possible for this to happen. There’s another letter from Doctor Fine in front of her which came with the test results, telling her that he’d done multiple tests from the same samples just to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake because _he_ didn’t understand either. She can sense it, the almost giddy excitement in his tone. It’s a miracle somehow and, being a man of science, he clearly can’t wait to find out _how_ and his clinical phrasing sets her on edge. He tells her what her next steps should be but the words seem to fall from her mind almost instantly. It feels like she’d read it a hundred times already, trying to process it, but really her brain hasn’t been able to get past that first line yet.

Natasha feels sick, and this time she’s sure it’s not from the baby.

The Baby.

It’s surreal, the idea that there is another life growing inside her. Another being. The very notion had been taken away from her in the Red Room, the idea that she could ever conceive a child. It hadn’t seemed to matter back then. It made the job easier. Less risks were taken that way. It was a minor thing to sacrifice, when she was serving the glorious Motherland that had given her so much. What did it matter, back then?

But even when she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D., she couldn’t afford to let any lingering grief over what she could have had get in the way of her work. When the world was burning it was her job to temper the flames, and an inferno was no place for a child. She didn’t have the time to waste on yesterdays – what’s done is done and more often than not it was hard enough staying _alive_ on a day to day basis, let alone have the time spare to wish for a family.

And that, rather miserably, is what it boiled down to, in the end. She honestly hadn’t expected to live long enough to do such a thing as become a mother even if she was capable.

But then she’d met Steve. And then she’d gone and fallen in _love_ with him.

A hand drops down to rest over her stomach unconsciously, her gaze following it. It doesn’t feel any different, to the touch. Doesn’t look any different, at least physically. But her mind is racing and it tells her that there _is_ something there, small and inconsequential right now but soon to be earthshattering for the both of them. A tiny glimmer of what feels like hopeful uncertainty flickers in her chest. For the first time, she can see a future for herself. A future with Steve. With their _child_. She finds herself wondering if the Baby will have Steve’s clear blue eyes or her green ones. If it would grow up to be as brash as its father. If it would inherit his smile or her hair, if-

“-Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she says under her breath, forcing herself to let go of the papers clutched in her hands and smooth them out over the counter. Taking a deep breath, she reads them again, properly this time.

Doctor Fine’s letter tells her that she’s in for a difficult and probably turbulent pregnancy, if her current condition is anything to go by. That her body is potentially trying to reject the baby already, and that they would have to take every precaution to ensure that both mother and child remain healthy and safe. Mother. The thought still seems foreign in her mind.

“Be rational, Natasha,” she tells herself sternly, before she’d overwhelmed. “Look at the facts.”

Strangely, focusing on the facts seems to help, instead of the dizzying thought of what motherhood could mean. If Fine is right, then there’s a very real chance that the baby won’t make it. That maybe even _she_ won’t survive. That her own body is killing her child, one final gift from the Red Room. One last failsafe in case the impossible happened.

Maybe it would be better to end the pregnancy now, before any of that had chance to happen. To save herself the pain of having her past come back to take everything away from her all over again. It would hurt, but Natasha would endure, like she always did. She would carry on. But Steve…Steve would never get over it, a family he never thought he could have cruelly ripped away from him. It would kill him too.

Wouldn’t it? Steve had known there was no chance (or so they thought) when they first started their relationship of having a family with Natasha, but that hadn’t stopped him. Had he said goodbye to that particular dream just to be with her? Had he already made peace with it? And, realistically, theirs is not a world that a child could easily be brought into. Aside from the already perilous missions they both do, there would be a constant threat from enemies on all sides, be it terrestrial, supernatural or alien. A number of enemies which only seemed to grow by the day. And no doubt scientists would demand to do countless experiments on the baby, proclaiming it to be the answer to infertility. Doctor Fine’s letter has already assured her of that even though he hadn’t directly said it. Could she allow her child to live a life like that? To be constantly examined and poked and prodded until it yielded the right results?

“Not seen that look in a while.”

Natasha raises her head sharply at the voice, startled but not showing it. Clint glances over his shoulder at her as he switches on the coffee machine and grabs a mug. There’s still sweat on his brow, covering large sections of his t-shirt and Natasha deduces that he must have just finished a session at the gym. His skin holds a few scrapes and bruises here and there, but they seem to be a few days old and already fading.

“What look?” she asks, trying to gather her thoughts together. Had she really been so caught up in her own head she hadn’t even noticed him come in? Hastily, she shuffles the papers back into the envelope. Clint slides into a seat next to her.

“The look that says you’re thinking way too hard,” he teases with a small grin. “What’s eatin’ you?”

Natasha hesitates. Should she tell him? Steve should really be the first person to find out, apart from Fine. And yet…

“I’m pregnant,” she says simply, because there’s no other way to say it. The words feel like they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth.

Clint nearly chokes on his first sip of coffee, and Natasha waits silently as he gasps for air, gulping down too much at once and sputtering all over again.

“Pregnant?” he wheezes once he’s caught enough of his breath to speak. “I thought you couldn’t get pregnant? You said it was-”

“Impossible,” she finishes. No, it _shouldn’t_ be possible. But somehow it _is_ and the weight of it has the papers slipping from her hands and feeling dizzy again. “I thought it was,” she says weakly, looking up at him. It feels like when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D., realising that everything she thought she knew was wrong, a falsehood that had been such an integral part of her crumbling to pieces as she watched, helpless.

“How long?” Clint exhales as he takes the seat next to her, looking a little shell-shocked himself and running a hand through his hair.

“Ten weeks,” she replies, looking back to the test results in front of her. Sliding the envelope over to Clint, she waits as he takes out the letters and skims over them, swearing under his breath. Another few moments pass before a laugh escapes him. Natasha looks over to him, confused.

“Nat, this is incredible,” he says animatedly, still staring at the test results. She watches with a sinking feeling in her stomach as a huge grin spreads across his face.

“Is it?” Natasha fixes her gaze on him, as if to daring him to say it again. Say it again and make her believe it too.

“Of course it is!” he exclaims brightly, apparently somewhat ignorant of her tone. He chatters on excitedly. “I feel like now is the time to make a joke about Steve being able to rival Thor in the fertility god department. Jesus, he’s gonna be ecstatic when he finds out about this. _Please_ tell me I can see his face when you tell him. I’ve always wanted to be an uncle, you know, didn’t think it would be you though…”

He continues in short, clipped sentences, excitement evident in his voice and movements, but Natasha can’t seem to focus on everything he’s saying. It’s too much at once, talking as if the Baby is already well on its way when she hasn’t even told Steve yet, let alone decided what to do with it. But still Clint rambles on, speaking fast and not letting her get a word in.

“I didn’t say I was keeping it,” she interjects, before he can carry on much longer and she can lose her temper with him. Her words don’t seem to hit him for a moment.

“…And then we’ll have to modify part of the Tower, get a nursery going and…wait, what?” His face falls as he realises exactly what she just said.

“The baby,” she clarifies. “I haven’t decided whether to keep it yet.”

“No,” Clint says quickly, concern quickly replacing the excitement on his features. “No, you have to keep it,” he urges. “You _have_ to.”

Does she? Even Doctor Fine said there would be a high chance of the Baby not even making it through the pregnancy, not to mention the toll it could take on Natasha herself. And even if they both made it through, none of them exactly have the kind of life that lets you live peacefully in suburbia like in the commercials. Nor is it a life she wants or needs. She’d accepted that a long time ago.

“What kind of person would raise a child in our world, Clint?”

“You’ll find a way, I know you will,” he says desperately, trying to reason with her now. “Steve – he would never let _anything_ happen to you or the baby. He’d _die_ first.”

“I know he would,” she admits. And that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Sometimes Natasha can’t even let herself think about the lengths he would go to protect her even now, about the things he’d already done to keep her safe. How much worse would a baby make things? He’s already nearly died for her on more than one occasion, even before they were together. She can’t let Steve give his own life for hers. Or even theirs.

“Steve would never get over it,” Clint continues. “If you got rid of it I mean. He’s always wanted a family, anyone can see that. He says he doesn’t but he’s not fooling anyone.”

“He would. Eventually he’d get over it,” Natasha says firmly. Steve might even hate her at first, but surely that’s better than risking the pain of losing the child at birth? Or worse, to an enemy later on and then watching him blame himself for it? She looks up at Clint, a flare of anger suddenly flourishing in her chest. “You once told me that _I_ was enough for him, that he just wanted _me_. Why should that be any different now? Did you not mean it?”

Natasha can see Clint flinch at the suggestion that she thinks he lied to her, but in her temper she doesn’t feel guilty about it. She needs to feel justified in her reasoning. Needs to know getting rid of the Baby is the right thing to do. The logical thing to do. But she needs to know this isn’t some huge mistake. She needs him to convince her that she’s wrong, that she should keep the Baby. She can feel tears stinging at her eyes because she realises that actually, she doesn’t know what the fuck she needs right now, and the awareness that she knows nothing terrifies her.

“I’d never - no, Nat, that’s not what I-”

“-We don’t need to have a baby to be happy,” she says, more to herself than Clint, trying to calm her thoughts. Steve loves her, and she loves him. Isn’t that enough? “I don’t even have to tell him about it.” She could just ask Doctor Fine to deal with it privately. He’d be bound by law not to tell Steve, right?

“No. No, Natasha, you’re not thinking straight,” Clint says, sounding worried. She feels a tentative hand on her shoulder. “You can’t just brush this under the carpet. You _need_ to talk to Steve about this. If he finds out you’ve done something like that without even telling him you’re going to lose him too.”

“Goddammit, Clint, I’m trying to be logical about this!” Natasha cries, temper flaring again. It’s frustrating, how suddenly her mood seems to change these days when she usually has everything so under control. She blames it on the messed up hormones. Taking a deep breath, she forces herself to stay calm.

“I know you are. That’s what you do, and that’s fine most of the time.” His tone turns more serious. “But shit, Natasha, this is big. B-I-G. Huge. Bildshnipe huge. A herd of Bildshnipe. Whatever they are. You can’t treat it like you’re planning a mission.”

Natasha might laugh at that, at any other time. But right now it just shatters whatever sliver of control she has left and before she can do anything those stupid hormones are back and tears threaten to spill over. A couple more seconds pass before she has to choke down a sob.

Because Clint’s right. This is big.

 _Too_ big.

And she can’t pretend she can handle it by herself anymore.

Natasha lets the tears fall. Clint wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulls her in close, murmuring reassurances into her hair. Part of her is ashamed at letting everything overwhelm her like this, weeping like some spoilt adolescent. But it’s just Clint, she tells herself. It’s okay to cry in front of Clint. He’s known her at her best, her worst, at her downright _terrible_. He knows and he’s still here, still her friend, and won’t think less of her for submitting to the weight of it all for a moment. She’s probably only crying for a couple of minutes. Maybe less. But it feels like a lot longer.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she mumbles into his chest, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“I wasn’t supposed to get thrown out of a window what feels like every other day but these things happen, you know?” he drawls lightly, trying to lift the mood a little.

Natasha huffs out a small laugh. Clint always knows what to say. Leaning back, she looks up at him and he offers a smile. One of his hands still rests on her shoulder.

 “Listen, I’m not going to try and force you to make a decision right now,” he says, turning serious again. “But promise me you’ll talk to Steve about it before you do anything. He needs to know.”

Natasha nods, though the thought is no less overwhelming than it was a few minutes ago. She knows Clint is right. She’s still not really had enough time to process everything, but it’s been long enough for Natasha to agree that she shouldn’t rush into anything without thinking through every eventuality.

And to do that the first thing she needs to do is tell Steve that he could be a father.

“I will.”

Clint smiles, satisfied she isn’t going to do anything rash, and goes with her up to her rooms. Once he’s seen her safely inside he leaves with another grin and surprisingly firm instructions to call him if she needs anything. She’s too tired to argue. Retiring to the bedroom, she lays down, eyelids heavy.

She can see it already, the subtle change in Clint’s behaviour towards her. As if now she’s pregnant suddenly she’s made of glass. _That’ll wear thin pretty quickly_ , she thinks to herself. Feeling as though others think her incapable is one of Natasha’s most hated things. But the others will be the same, if it ever gets that far. Steve will be the worst, of course, doting on her night and day, but she suspects that Stark and Thor would be surprisingly affectionate towards her and the Baby if she and Steve do decide to go through with it. Pepper would be ecstatic. Sam loves his younger relatives and would have no complaint at gaining another.

She looks down at her stomach, where her hand is already resting. Funny, she doesn’t remember putting it there.

“You’re going to be one hell of a spoilt kid if we ever get through this,” she sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a time when I never thought I could write Natasha pregnant. But I did it! Hooray!! So I'm giving myself some kudos for that xD  
> I know it was kind of angsty but I think I ended it on a happier note & I really hope you enjoyed. Feel free to leave comments/kudos etc with your thoughts. I was a bit dubious posting this but I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer. Something is better than nothing right?
> 
> Apologies for any grammar mistakes my brain is still no fully co-operating when I write.
> 
> Once again, I really hate having such long gaps between updates and really all I can do is say thank you so much for your patience and apologise profusely for the delay. I don’t know how you guys put with me seriously thank you so much <3<3 <3
> 
> See you next time!! :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to publish this on FanFiction Author Appreciation day but then life got in the way. Ew. But anyway. Here it is.
> 
> A quick note, I was so happy you guys liked the last chapter and Natasha discovering she is pregnant. I wanted it to be as much of a surprise for you guys as it would be for Natasha and I'm so glad everyone seemed to like it :)
> 
> So, onto this chapter, which is the longest yet! I should note that this chapter is set after the events of Age of Ultron, in a non spoilery way. The only things you should be aware of it that they are now based in the new facility and that F.R.I.D.A.Y is running the place instead of Jarvis. :)  
> There is a little bit of comic book canon but hopefully everything is clear/explained.
> 
> Beta'd by heyfrenchfreudiana :) love you long time

Surprisingly, they’re in the gym, sparring with Sam and Clint when they finally catch up with him. Or rather, when he catches up with them.

They’re fighting as individuals; three against one. It’s a good way to keep everyone on their toes, and integrate Sam into future tactics, learning his advantages and weaknesses. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Natasha gracefully roll out of view to avoid a sudden swooping dive from Sam, but doesn’t have chance register where she ends up because one of Clint’s training arrows hits his shoulder. Cursing as the electric jolt numbs the entirety of his right side and arm, rendering it useless at least for the next few minutes, Clint acts quickly, switching to close combat instead of distance. Steve blocks a punch with his left arm, swiftly darts to the side to avoid a kick, arm still useless.

“Captain Rogers?” F.R.I.D.A.Y says tentatively, lilting accent filling the room.

“Yes?” Steve grunts, forcing Clint back with a sequence of blows from his left arm. Clint deflects them all with practised efficiency. Though Steve has strength and size in his favour, Clint is _almost_ as quick as Natasha.

“I believe I have the current location of Sergeant Barnes,” she continues, a hint of surprise in her voice. Steve doesn’t even have time to pause, because suddenly Natasha has a garrotte around Clint’s throat and Sam is on the attack instead, wings now disabled. Steve narrowly dodges another blow.

“Where?” he asks, ducking again. If he’s close to his last location, south-east Italy, they could cut the training session short, leave and probably be over there in a matter of hours. If he was elsewhere…well, Steve would just have to hope that they wouldn’t be too late again.

“He’s outside the front doors of the facility, Captain.”

This time, Steve _does_ freeze in shock, and suddenly enough for Sam to land a solid punch to his jaw. There’s a muttered “ _shit, sorry,_ ” from Sam and then all of them seem to be held in place, waiting for Steve to react.

It feels like he can’t breathe. His heart is pounding, even harder than it was a few moments ago when they were sparring, thudding in his ears. Bucky’s here? Right outside? Has he regained his memories? Got tired of running? He glances at Natasha, who wears a determined expression, yet one of relief. Sam and Clint look much the same, though a little uncertain.

And then, all other thoughts don’t seem to matter.

Steve sprints to the elevator, ignoring the residual sting of Clint’s arrow in his shoulder and side, followed quickly by the others. The elevator seems to take an age to reach the ground floor, and Steve’s mind races, hoping that this isn’t a dream and that Bucky will still be there when he gets down there. The elevator doors slide open and Steve immediately takes off at a dash again down the long hall of the facility.

Nearing the front doors, he sees Vision and Wanda already there, poised cautiously to fight and restrain Bucky if needed, but hesitating until Steve got there. He slows to a jog, stomach suddenly lurching at the thought of having to fight his best friend again. What if he hasn’t come here for the reasons Steve hopes?

What if he’s here to finish his mission?

What if Bucky is here to kill him?

Steve slows to a stop as he sees Bucky through the glass doors, holds his breath. His layers of clothes are dirty and worn, hair hanging lank and greasy. He’s sporting an unkempt beard, arms hanging loosely by his side. His metal fingertips glint in the sunlight.

But none of that is what Steve sees.

He sees his friend, looking lost and small. He sees a flash of uncertainty in blue eyes. He sees Bucky’s jaw clench slightly, and Steve remembers a time when Bucky would do the same thing when he was steeling himself up for something. For a fraction of a moment, Steve sees the man he knew, all those years ago. Bucky schools his features back into a carefully blank mask, glancing at the cameras and weapons trained on where he stands.

“Open the doors, Friday,” Steve breathes.

“Steve,” Wanda interjects, gaze flickering to Vision. “We don’t know how dangerous-”

“-Open the doors,” Steve repeats, firmer this time.

For a second nobody moves, but the doors swing open and Steve dares to take a couple of tentative steps forward. He still doesn’t know what mind set Bucky is in and doesn’t want to scare him away or risk the safety of the others with sudden moves.

“Buck?” A pause. Steve holds his breath because the air seems too thick to swallow.

“Steve.” It almost sounds like a question. Bucky’s voice is low, rougher than it used to be. Less bright. Mouth dry, Steve risks another step forward.

“Do you remember me?” he asks carefully.

“I remember…” He trails off, momentarily unsure. Hesitating, he glances warily at the others. His brow furrows, as if he’s struggling to recall a memory and can’t quite grasp it. As if he’s mentally fighting with himself. But then he meets Steve’s gaze again, confident.

“You used to be smaller.”

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t quite hit him at first.

Steve’s just too happy to have Bucky back, too ecstatic for words. How could he not be? Though Bucky doesn’t remember everything, there are moments where it almost feels like Steve has his best friend back. Where it feels like it did all those years ago, before the War claimed them both.

Days pass. Steve doesn’t feel so joyful anymore, and there’s a different kind of grief weighing in his chest than there was before.

He expects Bucky to have nightmares. He has them often enough himself, and Bucky has been to hell and back a thousand times over even if he doesn’t remember it. But Steve can only call his own nightmares sweet dreams in comparison to Bucky’s. If he does manage to drift off to sleep when the exhaustion got too overwhelming, he wakes shaking and screaming, covered in sweat with no recollection of what had woken him. For every memory he seems to have regained there are twice as many moments where Steve feels like he’s looking at a ghost, Bucky’s eyes glassy and unresponsive, mind locked in a place Steve can’t reach. On the rare occasion he speaks, there’s a raw edge to his voice and Steve can tell how carefully he’s choosing his words. One time he ends up nearly breaking Sam’s arm when he made Bucky jump, and only Natasha holding a gun at his head had made him back off.

And it’s killing Steve that he has no fucking idea how to help.

Letting out a defeated sigh, Steve slumps down onto his couch, drags his hands down his face. Bucky has been staying with Steve since he got back (he wouldn’t allow Bucky to be imprisoned in the holding cells as the others suggested), in his spare room, locking himself away for hours at a time. Sometimes Steve doesn’t hear a sound coming from the room. Others he’ll hear furniture being smashed against the wall.

“Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff is requesting entry to your quarters,” Friday informs, interrupting Steve’s thoughts. His heart leaps.

“Granted,” he responds instantly, rising from his seat. Normally, Natasha would be able to come and go as she pleased from his living quarters. But since Bucky is here, his security levels must have risen tenfold.

“Hey stranger,” Natasha says with a small smile, walking over to him.

“’Tasha,” he breathes, cupping the sides of her face and pulling her into a deep, desperate kiss. They haven’t told Bucky about their relationship yet, wanting to give him time to adjust, so they’ve barely had any time alone together since he got back two weeks ago. Steve is the one he seems most comfortable around so Bucky spends most of his time by his side. But right now, they’re finally alone and Steve grasps at the chance to taste her, to let her touch push his thoughts away for a moment. She sighs against his lips, and for a moment Steve feels like he could almost forget about everything else. Almost.

“What about Bucky?” she murmurs through kisses.

“In his room,” Steve replies. But as much as he’d like to keep kissing her, she’s right. Just because Bucky isn’t in the room with them now doesn’t mean there’s no chance of him walking in on them. He wants to tell Bucky about his feelings for Natasha when he’s ready, not before. Pulling back reluctantly, he drops his hands to his sides and takes a step back with a glum nod.

“How are you holding up?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“Not great,” he admits with a deep exhale. She edges a little closer, waiting expectantly. “I just…I mean I didn’t think it would be _easy_ ,” he starts, going back to the sofa. “But I guess I just thought I’d be able to _help_ him. I just feel so…so…”

“Useless?” she finishes, sinking down next to him. The knot in Steve’s chest seems to lessen. He should have known Natasha would be the only one who would understand. “It won’t happen overnight,” she continues.

“I know,” he replies. He doesn’t expect anything to happen overnight. Even Natasha had admitted to him that her own conditioning had taken a long time to break down, and Bucky’s conditioning had been so much more invasive. Has taken too much from him.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m looking at a stranger,” he says wearily.

“I think the man you knew died a long time ago, Steve.”

Steve knows she’s right, again. Bucky isn’t the man Steve knew before the War, or even during it. He isn’t the man Natasha knew in the Red Room either. It must be difficult for her too, he realises dimly, to see Bucky like this. A broken shell of a man trying to piece himself back together. But Steve has to believe that part of the Bucky he knew is still in there somewhere, fighting to get out. He’s seen glimpses of it, fragments slipping through in some of the mannerisms and preferences that Bucky is developing.

"Maybe Wanda could help?" Natasha suggests lightly. Steve shakes his head.

"He's had his head messed around with enough already, " he says. Maybe, if Bucky expressed an interest in how Wanda might be able to help, then _maybe_ they could talk about it, but Steve still doesn't like the idea. Who knows what kind of things having someone dig around in his mind might trigger?

 “I think all you can do right now is be there for him when he needs you,” Natasha continues. “You help him with the nightmares, right?”

If ‘helping’ meant being woken in the small hours of the morning by shouts and screams, busting his way into Bucky’s room and physically restraining him so he didn’t hurt himself until he could shake free of the nightmare, then yeah, he’s doing plenty of that.

“I just wish I had known sooner,” Steve confesses quietly, shoulders slumping even further. “Maybe we would have found him sooner, maybe none of the shit in D.C. would have happened. If I’d just kept looking for longer after he fell in the first place none of this-”

“-Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself,” Natasha says firmly. “Promise me you’re not going to blame yourself anymore.”

“Nat, I can’t-”

“-Promise me,” she repeats. “Steve, you can’t change the past, as much as you want to. Misplaced guilt isn’t going to fix anything.”

Steve looks across to meet her gaze, but can’t get the words past the sudden lump in his throat. She waits, eyes never leaving his. He knows she isn’t going to let the subject drop until she hears the words she wants to hear, and eventually he manages to choke them out.

“I promise,” he gasps, and the way she smiles at him immediately seems to lift some of the weight from his chest. She moves closer and one hand reaches up to run her fingers through his hair. Steve’s always found the action to be inexplicably comforting. She laces the other fingers of her spare hand through his.

“Think of it this way; Bucky’s already made the choice that he wants to be here, right? That’s a huge step.”

Steve nods, feeling numb, soothed by her touch and her words. He feels more than a little stupid too, because she makes it sound so obvious, so easy whereas his brain had been in overdrive, running in circles.

“He called me a punk the other day,” Steve muses aloud. Maybe the progress is in small pieces, but it’s _there_. Steve was just too busy feeling guilty to notice properly.

“He’ll get better. I did.” She offers him a small, reassuring smile as she bumps her knee against his. The grief that’s been his constant companion the past couple of weeks seems pretty quiet. Steve still doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve her.

“What would I do without you?” he asks, pulling her across his lap. He doesn’t even think he wants to know the answer. Natasha enlightens him anyway.

“Oh, I don’t know, wallow in self-pity, probably,” she teases.

“Probably,” he agrees, dipping his head down to kiss her.

 

* * *

 

Another few days pass.

Natasha reclines in an armchair in Steve’s quarters, head resting against the cool leather of the chair and eyes closed. Steve left early that morning on a mission, and Natasha offered to ‘watch’ Bucky while he was gone. Which would be much more tolerable if she didn’t currently have a dull headache throbbing at her temples. But so far, he’d remained in his room.

Her thoughts are occupied with thoughts of the Baby. Or more specifically, how in the hell she’s supposed to tell Steve about the Baby. She’d settled on telling Steve when she’d worked up the courage, but she’d only known a few days and then Bucky had come back out of the blue. The whole facility had seemed to go into lockdown and Steve already had enough on his mind with trying to help Bucky. She'd barely even seen him, and when she did he was always with Bucky or other members of the team. And of course, this wasn't something she'd wanted to break to him in front of the others. So she’d waited. Told herself that she could spare a few more days before telling him. But then days had turned into a week and Steve still didn’t know. Then two.

Already nearly three weeks have passed since Bucky came back. That puts her up to thirteen weeks pregnant and she’s running out of time. She’ll start showing soon, and if she still wants to consider terminating the pregnancy then her window of opportunity is slowly growing smaller as the Baby grows larger.

She’s so wrapped up in her thoughts, she almost doesn’t notice when a door creaks open and Bucky steps out. But his footfalls are obvious, loud, something which she knows from experience is difficult to do for someone with their training. Cracking one eye open, she watches him disappear into the kitchen and hears him come to a stop with a purposeful shuffle of a boot, as if to assure her he isn’t a threat. She hasn’t quite decided if that’s the case yet, and she’s a little surprised when he speaks without prompting. She hasn’t known him to instigate a conversation since his return.

“Natalia.”

His voice is gruffer than she remembers. A few times Natasha had wondered how much (if any) he remembered of their time together in Russia. Apparently he remembers enough to call her by the name she had left there. Looking over at him, she notes that he is holding a glass of water with his flesh hand. He still wears a glove over the metal one.

“James,” she replies coolly. He’d recently expressed a desire to be called by his given name. Only Steve can get away with calling him Bucky.

“I heard you,” he states from the doorway of the kitchen, voice impassive. “Talking to Steve the other day.”

Natasha stills, keeping her face impassive. Talking to Steve? Had he been eavesdropping? Or just accidentally heard them? She doesn’t answer straight away, wanting to gauge what kind of reaction he might be having to whatever he overheard. But she might as well be looking at a brick wall for all the emotion on his face.

“Talking about me,” he clarifies, and takes a step closer.

“Yes,” she says clearly. No point lying about it, is there? She meets his gaze, waiting for a reaction. The silence stretches out to the point Natasha isn’t sure he’s even going to say anything else. But he clearly came here for a reason so she presses for a better idea of what that might be. “What did you hear?” she asks, trying to keep her tone light.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” he asks, voice a low rumble, her question ignored. Natasha purses her lips for a moment, not sure how to respond. Once, so long ago it feels like a different lifetime, she’d trusted the man in front of her with her life. He’d helped to train her. He’d even grown to love her, and she him. But now, she only sees a stranger standing in his place. He walks over to the coffee table and sets the glass of water down, movements slow and deliberate.

“I did once,” she says carefully. “But it’s different now. You’re not that man anymore.”

A short, sharp breath escapes him, almost a laugh but with all the humour missing from his face.

“I’m not, am I? Sometimes I wonder…not sure I even remember who…”

Natasha watches as Bucky trails off into a mumble, something glazing over his eyes. His brow furrows, as if he’s seeing part of what might be a memory but not quite enough to make sense of it. Hovering just out of his grasp, elusive as smoke. The fog seems to clear and he looks back at her, eyes sharp again.

“Steve’s in love with you, isn’t he?” he asks abruptly, but the way he says it doesn’t sound like he’s asking a question. Natasha’s breath catches in her throat, not expecting the sudden change in subject. They hadn’t told Bucky about their relationship yet, and nobody else would have told him. But it seems that his perceptiveness is just as sharp as ever. Maybe he’d overheard more than she thought the other day.

“Yes,” she says tightly, after a pause. He looks back at her with some scrutiny, as if he was expecting her to lie. Natasha holds his gaze, determined not to back down first.

“And you love him?”

“Yes,” she admits, quietly but firmly, with conviction. Bucky holds her gaze a moment longer, before his attention flickers to the window behind her. He stills, looking to be deep in thought again. Natasha waits for a reaction, now that she’s confirmed his suspicions for him, feeling uncertain. After a few moments, he speaks.

“That’s good.”

“Good?” she repeats, somewhat surprised. The tight ball of apprehension in her stomach loosens. She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d been anticipating but it wasn’t that. Not after all the history they shared, the three of them.

“He needs that,” Bucky muses aloud, before she can press any further and she sits there, stunned. “Someone he can fight for.” His features soften somewhat, the corner of his mouth twitching up so slightly Natasha thinks she must have imagined it. The feeling of unease, of uncertainty she’s had since he stepped in the room with her fades a little.

“We weren’t sure when to tell you,” Natasha explains, even though he hadn’t asked for any justification. She stands from the chair, because he still hasn’t sat down and it feels easier to defend herself on equal footing. “I didn’t know how much you remembered of…before.” Of the two of them together, instead of her and Steve. When she’d told Steve about her relationship with Bucky, he’d understood. That isn’t to say he thought it was ideal, but he was still in the ice back then, and Natasha had been a different person. No one could have known things would end up this way. But they hadn’t wanted to risk Bucky reacting badly before he got his head into shape.

“I remember that you were the one good thing, the _only_ good thing about it all, Natalia.” He pauses, reaches up to put a hand on her shoulder, just under her neck. “I want you to know that.”

Natasha’s heart clenches. There was a time when they would have torn down the world for each other. Hell, they nearly had of several occasions. But that was before.

He rests his forehead against hers, and a moment passes where if she concentrated hard enough, she could probably fool her brain into thinking she were back in the Red Room all those years ago.

But she isn’t, and she doesn’t want to be. She wouldn’t have Steve if she was.

She wouldn’t have the Baby.

Bucky breaks away, takes a step back.

“Who’d have thought we’d end up here, huh?” she jokes, and he lets out a short, bitter laugh. Sitting back down in the armchair, she watches as Bucky awkwardly follows suit in the chair opposite. She sobers, thinking about all the things he may or may not remember, and she’s struck by just how much he _does_ seem to recall, even in just the short amount he’s said. This is the longest conversation she’s heard him have, even with Steve. Curious, she presses on.

“You remember more than I thought you did. Why haven’t you talked to Steve about any of this?”

He pauses, and looks away.

“I’m still piecing it all together,” he says shortly. “The things I’m remembering…they’re not…good.”

Natasha waits. His eyes seem a little unfocused again, seeing things that aren’t in front of him.

“I don’t want to upset him,” he says simply. He looks back up at her after a moment. “You understand.”

It’s a statement, not an opinion. A fact. He _knows_ that she understands. That she understands what it’s like to witnesz and commit unspeakable things. To have unspeakable things done in return to her. To lose all sense of self and belonging, and to be broken so many times there’s nothing left to break. She understands what it’s like to not know which pieces to pick back up again. She understands that there are some things which cannot be spoken about, no matter the listener.

“He’ll think you’re shutting him out,” she says, even though she knows exactly why he doesn’t want to tell Steve about the memories he’s having. There are things she could never tell Steve. Things she knows would bring him pain, and that was one thing she promised herself she would never do.

“Maybe,” Bucky agrees, brow furrowed.

“We’re here for you, you know,” she states, because it’s what Steve would say. “Both of us.”

“I know.”

Neither of them speaks again, but there’s a strange sense of calm between them now, unlike the uncertain apprehension she had felt when he had first spoken. It feels like closure. They sit together for a while longer, before Bucky stands and turns to leave the room.

 “James?” she calls, before he’s gone. She has no idea when she’ll get the chance to talk to him again like this, as if they knew each other. His moods are temperamental at best these days, depending on what kind of memories he’s experiencing. He looks back, waits for her to continue.

“There’s something you should know,” she says. The corner of his mouth quirks up.

“And what’s that?”

“It’s Natasha now.” He’s silent a moment more, and Natasha holds her breath. He turns to leave again.

“Goodnight, Natal-.” He stops himself abruptly, glances back at her. “ _Natasha_.”

Natasha smiles to herself. He’s making more progress than Steve thinks.

Maybe now she can get back to thinking of how to tell him that he’s going to be a father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's alternate title is "In which Bucky has terrible timing and ruins Natasha's plan of telling Steve about the baby"
> 
> I feel like there was a lot of talking in this chapter (probably why I felt the need to start with an action/fight scene) but I really wanted to write this chapter, for both Steve and Natasha. Bucky coming back would be have such a huge impact on both of them for different reasons (and together), and I think it's not really something you can just brush under the carpet. I really wanted to explore the changes that would take place and how the dynamics between them would be, so I really hope you enjoyed reading!
> 
> Also, apologies for not letting Steve find out about the baby in this chapter, I know some of you were waiting for it xD I promise he will find out next chapter! <3  
> Speaking of which, I am really excited to start writing chapter 10. There is so much shit happening I can't even tell you.  
> You'll just have to wait and see! ;)
> 
> As always, comments/kudos always appreciated!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So. This was turning out a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, so I've cut part out to put in with the next chapter. So the next chapter will follow straight on. This still ended up as 10 pages though so it's the longest chapter yet
> 
> Also I was in the process of making a Winter Soldier playlist and thought it would go well with this chapter. I love having an atmosphere while writing or reading and I really think this fits :) You can listen here while reading if you like; http://8tracks.com/spanglecap/a-bullet-named-winter  
> Or listen to it whenever. I am biased but I think it's a great mix ;D I would like to make more in the future!
> 
> So, onto the main event.  
> Note/warning; this chapter has graphic violence so if that isn't your jam please message me or leave a comment and I can summarise the chapter for you :)
> 
> In advance; I'm sorry

 “ _I’m gonna ask her to marry me_.”

Bucky pauses at Steve’s voice in his ear, slightly distorted over the comm link. His fingers hover over the control panel, task momentarily forgotten. Glancing to the security monitors above him, he watches as Steve and Barton jog down a corridor, flipping onto a different screen as they pass a camera. Did he really just say that or is Bucky just hearing things again? Broken fragments of memories sometimes float into his head only to wisp away like smoke seconds later.

“ _What?_ ” comes Clint’s reply, stunned. Well. At least he’s not hearing things. For now anyway.

“ _Natasha_ ,” Steve says, not sounding fazed by Clint’s tone in the slightest. “ _I want to marry her_.” On the screen, Steve slows to a halt at the end of a corridor, path blocked by a heavy steel door. He turns _to face the security camera, as if to look at Bucky and gestures to the lock on the wall. “Door, Buck?”_

“You really want to talk about this _now_?” Bucky asks exasperatedly, quickly punching a few buttons in rapid succession and releasing the door lock. It slides open, and the pair step through. They’re on a mission (the first he’s been allowed on since he moved into the new Avengers facility a month ago), and although it should be a straightforward assignment, Bucky still doesn’t want to risk getting distracted and mess things up. Not when he’s supposed to be proving he can handle these kinds of things again.

“ _This is the perfect time to talk about it,”_ Clint drawls, voice dripping with sarcasm. “ _Wait – we are talking about the same Natasha, right?”_

“ _What’s that supposed to mean?”_ Steve says sharply. Bucky not so subtly decides to stay out of the conversation, choosing to focus on the facility’s controls in front of him.

“ _I’m just not sure Natasha’s the marrying type_ ,” Clint says tightly after a pause. Bucky isn’t sure she’s the marrying type either, but decides it’s not his place to say. If it’s what Steve wants, if it would make him happy, then Bucky doesn’t have the right to stop him. And who knows? Maybe she’ll say yes, if she loves him as much as Bucky thinks she does.

“ _Are you sure abou_ -”

“-Closing in on target location,” Bucky interjects gruffly, before Steve can finish. Focus on the mission objective. It’s a simple data extraction, a few guards here and there but nothing Steve and Barton can’t handle. Bucky is basically just there to open doors, because Steve doesn’t want to risk exposing him to anything that might trigger the Winter Soldier back into control. None of them are sure how much of his conditioning Bucky’s managed to break yet, himself included. He glances at the monitor and then back to the control panel map. “Next right, then a left, two guards.”

“ _Copy that_ ,” Steve says, in a quieter tone. Clint seems to get the message and shuts up, following Steve with an arrow ready in his bow. Bucky gets to work overriding the lock for the next door (solid steel again), and by the time he checks the monitors again, the guards are out cold on the floor before they even knew what hit them.

“Open sesame,” he drawls dryly, hitting the release button and earning a snort of laughter from Steve. Reaching for the shield on his back, Steve steps through the doorway cautiously, Barton following after a brief scan back down the empty corridor. Bucky switches views on the monitor, seeing the room they’d just entered empty. Confused, he flips back to view the corridor. Also empty. Before he can check again, the monitors flicker and blackout, view lost.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters under his breath. Either this is just a momentary glitch in the system, or someone is playing them. And Bucky doesn’t believe in glitches. The cameras in the room must have been playing on a loop, hiding whatever is actually happening.

“ _Everything okay_?” Steve asks.

“Cameras are down,” he says quickly, rebooting the system. It doesn’t sound like any enemy has engaged, but he asks anyway. “Contact?”

“ _Room’s clear_ ,” Barton replies. “ _Already got eighty-two percent of the files copied.”_

The screens spark up simultaneously, and Bucky curses again as he sees the troupe of guards rushing towards his two teammates with driven urgency, converging from two paths. A lot of them. With some very big guns. They must have been waiting for them.

“Incoming, twenty seconds max. At least thirty of them.”

“ _Armed?”_ Steve asks.

“To the teeth,” Bucky confirms. Steve swears.

“ _Where did they come from, thin air?”_ Clint asks, but none of them really have time to answer. Steve speaks up, that quick mind of his having already formulated a plan.

“ _Okay, Bucky, go back to the jet, we’ll take care of this. Clint, retrieve the data, cover the door. I’ll engage the_ -”

He’s cut off abruptly, a deafening roar in Bucky’s ear. He shouts out in pain, grasping at the earpiece. The ground shakes, and Bucky’s had enough experience with explosions to recognise one when he feels it. The sharp pain in his ear dulls to a small throb after a few seconds.

“Status?” No reply. Just a bunch of distorted static, and the occasional burst of incoherent fighting. Whatever happened at the other end must have damaged their comm link.

“Steve?” he urges. “Barton?”

Bucky’s heart is racing. The monitors shut down again. Reaching for a weapon, his fingers grasp nothing but air. No gun on a holster, no knives on his belt. Mentally, he curses Steve for only agreeing to bring him on the mission under the condition that he stay away from any kind of conflict. No weapons.

But if they’ve gone after Steve and Barton, surely they’ll be coming for him too. Whoever “they” are. But really, all that matters is that they’ve strolled straight into this trap, and the only way out of it is going to be blood.

“This was supposed to be a fucking cakewalk,” he growls to himself. Discarding the useless earpiece, he pauses as he hears heavy footfalls approaching down the corridor. At least four of them, by the sounds of it.

For a moment, he panics. For the first time in decades, he _panics_. He’s worked so hard not the let the Winter Soldier out, to prove he’s the one in control but already he can feel the Soldier itching to get out as if he’ never really gone away. All of it, for nothing. He’s never been the one in control, not since the War.

He can do this. He just has to be stronger. Has to hold onto everything he’s fighting for in the first place. Metal fingers curl into a fist. He doesn’t need a weapon. He _is_ the weapon. And he’s going to get Steve out of this mess, like he always did, before. Barton too, if he promises to stop joking about leaving magnets on his arm.

The door bursts open. The guards pour in, guns held high. Bucky faces them, holds onto his conviction. One of the guards pulls the trigger.

Later, he’ll remember how it felt like a switch when the Winter Soldier had shifted back into control, pushing him to the back of his own mind, an unwilling spectator. Remember how the bullets had ricocheted off his metal arm, and the feel of blood on his hands. The slickness of it. The taste.

And he’ll remember oh, how _easy_ it was.

 

* * *

 

The door opens, and after a cautious second, Clint follows Steve past the threshold. The room seems to be empty, but Clint’s senses are still on high alert. They weren’t expecting much opposition on this job but this is almost _too_ easy. Really? Only two guards on the door and nobody inside? Clint’s almost insulted. Almost, but something doesn’t feel right. There’s a strange weight in the pit of his stomach and a prickling sensation on the back of his neck.

Ignoring it for the moment, he places his bow on the desk in front of the command centre and inserts the flash drive into the computer. There’s an encrypted programme on the drive which boots up in seconds, decoding data and breaking past firewalls. Just get the intel. Then they can get the hell out of here.

“ _Shit_ ,” Bucky mutters in his ear. Clint pauses, practically waiting for the proverbial shit to hit the fan. Or it could be nothing. Maybe Bucky’s just stubbed his toe. Right?

“Everything okay?” Steve asks from the other side of the room. Clint glances over at him, but he’s busy inspecting a panel on the wall.

“ _Cameras are down,”_ comes the clipped reply. “ _Contact?_ ”

“Room’s clear,” Clint replies after another quick look around. That weird feeling is still lodged in his throat and in the pit of his stomach but there doesn’t appear to be any imminent danger. He checks the screen. “Already got eighty-two percent of the files copied _.”_

Steve’s grip tightens on the straps of his shield, a wary expression on his face.

“ _Incoming, twenty seconds max. At least thirty of them.”_

Fuck. Clint really hates it when he’s right.

“Armed?” Steve asks, already moving. He locks down the door.

“ _To the teeth_ ,” Bucky confirms. Steve curses.

“Where did they come from, thin air?” Clint asks. There had been no warning signs, only his inexplicable uneasy feeling. The drive reaches one hundred percent on the screen, and Clint quickly snatches up the drive, tucking it away in his vest and nocking an arrow in the string of his bow. Steve seems to have come up with a plan.

“Okay, Bucky, go back to the jet, we’ll take care of this. Clint, retrieve the data, cover the door. I’ll engage the-”

The blast knocks Clint clean off his feet, pain shooting through his body as he lands heavily on his back. His earpiece crackles static and lets out piercing, shrill cry, echoing through his brain with painful ferocity. He curses, dazed, but manages to roll onto his side and push himself up. No time to lick his wounds. He staggers to his feet.

“Cap?” he coughs, eyes darting around the room. There’s dust in his lungs and already three of the armed guards waiting on the other side spill into the room past the ruins of the door. But they’re pretty much standing in a line, and Clint takes them out quickly enough with a well-aimed arrow.

“Cap!” he repeats, louder this time, past the ringing in his ears. There’s a spluttered cough and a pained groan from the other side of the room, opposite where the door was. Okay, so he’s conscious at least.

More agents pour in, endless. Clint manages to take out a couple more with arrows before sliding over a desk to take cover behind it. He fires again, hitting one in the neck. He stumbles back against the agent behind him, gasping and clutching at his throat. The sound of bullets hitting Steve’s shield distracts him, short, controlled bursts. Most of the agents seem to be going for Steve – makes sense really, as he’s built like a tank and has the strength to match – but a handful push their way through to where Clint’s positioned.

Okay, this looks bad.

Clint reaches behind him, scrolling through the arrowheads until he finds the one he’s searching for. A moment later and the arrow slices through the air. He pushes a button on the quiver and the arrow splits into pieces and finding their targets with deadly accuracy; three more hit the ground. But three more are right behind them. Risking a glance over at Rogers, Clint can barely make him out amongst the mass of bodies, but a flash of red catches his eye. It looks like Steve’s managed to take out a fair number of them, but there’s blood on his uniform and a blow knocks him to one knee; he forces himself back up but there’s just _so_ _many_ …

Okay, this looks worse.

He starts firing arrows again. As many as he can, towards the men fighting Steve. It looks like Steve was injured worse than he was by the initial blast, and despite the serum running through his veins they’re outnumbered and outgunned. He manages to deal with four more before a pair of them reaches him and he has to switch to close combat. If they had been better prepared things might be different, but the enemy had the element of surprise and that alone taken away most advantages they might have had on their side. Right now it’s sheer numbers that they’re losing to.

One of the guards lunges at Clint with a knife instead of using his gun – clearly he doesn’t see Clint as much of a threat if he wants to get up close and personal when he’s so heavily armed. Well. That’s his mistake to make. Just because he prefers to use a bow and arrow at a distance doesn’t mean he can’t hold his own in a fistfight. Clint deflects the jab with ease, catching the man’s arm and twisting. Catching the knife before it has chance to clatter to the floor, he holds it to the man’s throat, shielding his own body with the guard’s. He kicks the other agent square in the stomach – he doubles over with a surprised cry of pain – and midst the fighting, Clint spots a figure in the doorway that doesn’t look like the rest.

A gleam of metal.

“Barnes!” he shouts. “Get your ass in here, now!”

It’s a terrible idea and Clint knows it. Getting Barnes into a fight is the last thing on Earth he should be doing. Steve’s gonna kill him for doing so.

But they need him.

“No!” Steve yells almost immediately. Clint can’t even see a glimpse of him now. A grunt of pain from somewhere. “Bucky, stay out of this!”

A few of the guards have turned on Bucky, guns held high in cautious approach. Barnes looks back with an empty gaze, motionless. Even the guards around Clint have paused to weigh up how much of a threat he is. A single bullet ricochets off Bucky’s shoulder, a sharp clink of metal on metal. Clint realises with a sinking feeling in his stomach that it isn’t Barnes standing in the doorway.

It’s the Winter Soldier.

The guards don’t stand a chance. Clint realises just how much Bucky has been holding back in their tentative sparring sessions. He had no idea. It’s like a different man is before him, snapping into action so quickly Clint’s surprised he doesn’t get whiplash. Barnes moves in the morbidly graceful in the way Natasha moves. Elegant and precise and lethal. It’s fluid. It’s beautiful.

It’s horrifying.

The first two agents are dead before they even know it, a spray of blood as their throats are slit in one smooth strike. A third manages to fire a couple of bullets at the Soldier before his neck is snapped. Suddenly four of them are down, then six, and the guards fighting Steve seem to realise what’s happening and focus their efforts on Barnes. But Barnes has picked up a gun somewhere – not that Clint thinks he even needs another weapon – and Bucky doesn’t even have the basic reflex to _blink_ when he pulls the trigger in rapid succession. Five more crumple to the ground, lifeless. An assailant grabs Barnes from behind. He swiftly throws the man over his shoulders to land with a thud and a surprised yelp. Barnes’s boot comes down on the man’s skull with a single, sickening crack.

Clint can’t watch anymore. More gunshots. He doesn’t know who fired them. Trying not to throw up, he stumbles over to Steve, who lands a solid punch on the last guard standing in front of him – the rest are being slaughtered by Barnes. It’s only then Clint sees how badly he’s been hurt. His uniform is in tatters on his right side, torn up by the shrapnel buried in his flesh. It must have happened in the explosion. A nasty gash on his thigh – looks like a bullet grazed him – but at least three other places where the bullets have found their mark. They must have been armour piercing rounds. One bullet hole looks dangerously close to his heart. There’s sweat on Steve’s brow and his breathing is laboured. There’s a scream from one of the guards, cut short before it’s finished.

“Come on,” Clint urges. “Have to get out of here before…”

He trails off as he turns to face Barnes. There’s only one agent left. On his knees begging, crying for the Winter Soldier to let him live. A single gunshot echoes throughout the room.

The Soldier takes a step towards them. Clint’s heart is beating so fast he thinks he might have a heart attack before Barnes gets chance to kill him. He makes a mental note to stop drinking so much caffeine if he makes it out alive. Bucky raises his gun again.

“Barnes,” Clint says firmly, thankful that he doesn’t sound as terrified as he feels. “It’s me, it’s Clint. You know me.” Taking a tentative step forward, he shows Barnes his empty hands. Not a threat. No need to kill him. He tries to crack a smile. “Why don’t you…why don’t you just put the gun down, huh?”

It’s there, for a second. Hesitation. Barnes’s eyes flicker from Clint to Steve, then back to Clint. The gun drops a few centimetres, and Clint breathes a sigh of relief.

He should have known better.

The Soldier pulls the trigger, three times in rapid succession. Clint is thrown backwards, the blunt force of the bullets hitting him square in the chest. Pain explodes through his body and he gasps for breath, wheezing and coughing, the bullets having quite literally knocked the air out of him. Getting shot at nearly point blank range tends to do that to a guy. They’re not the same armour piercing rounds that had been used on Steve but right now they kind of feel like the same thing and Clint struggles to see straight.

“Bucky, don’t do this,” he hears Steve plead. There’s a pain in his voice that isn’t from any of the injuries he’s sustained. “Don’t let them control you again. You can fight it. You have a choice.”

Clint mentally releases a string of profanities, because goddammit Steve, that isn’t going to work this time. Steve’s been able to talk him down a few times over the last month but Bucky’s never been triggered like this before. He needs to do something, _anything_ , because they’re both seconds away from getting killed and Natasha would kill him all over again if he let something happen to Steve.

Something hovers in the back of Clint’s mind and he fights to reach it. What was hat word again? Something that had saved his life (and Fury’s, for that matter) once when Natasha had been going through her transition to S.H.I.E.LD. and had relapsed into a violent rage. He just hopes, in some twisted way, that the two assassins had been programmed the same way.

“Sputnik,” he gasps.

The effect is almost instant. Bucky’s arm drops limply to his side and the gun clatters to the floor seconds before he crumples there too.

A few seconds tick by before Clint lets himself relax. Part of him thinks that Bucky will just get back up any second. But he doesn’t. The archer wheezes out a long breath.

“How did you know that was gonna work?” Steve asks, voice tight.

“I didn’t,” Clint admits. He looks at Steve and sees there’s a translucent, sickly sheen to his skin. He’s losing too much blood too quickly and his eyes are unfocused. Honestly, Clint’s amazed he’s still standing. “Think you can make it back to the jet?”

Steve nods with a grimace. Normally Steve’s as stubborn as a mule so when Clint offers his shoulder for support and Steve accepts without protest, he knows the captain must be feeling downright terrible. His uniform is so soaked with blood that even the blue parts look black.

“Bucky-” Steve starts, voice hoarse.

“-I’ll come back for him,” Clint says. “As long as you promise to stay conscious while I get him. We need to get you to a doctor. Or several.”

Steve nods again, and Clint staggers under most of his weight. They pass Bucky’s unmoving form with a silent apology.

Somehow, they make it back to the jet.

And somehow, Clint manages to find the strength to drag Bucky’s unconscious ass back there too.

 

* * *

 

Steve’s felt like this before.

It feels like dying.

_Stay awake._

That’s all he has to do. Just stay conscious. Easy.

Steve blinks in a haze, his vision blurring in and out of focus. Clint’s voice, somewhere in the background, telling him _“-hold on, just a little longer_.” The hum of an engine. Hands pressing down on his abdomen and chest. Pain. Cold seeping through his bones.

Eyelids heavy, he drifts in and out of awareness, senses disoriented and dazed. Maybe it isn’t so easy to stay awake. The pressure on his torso seems to have lifted.

Trying to sit up, he finds he can barely move without pain assaulting him from every angle anyway, sharp and intense. He coughs, lungs protesting, and a fresh, metallic tang of blood fills his mouth. By some miracle, he manages to roll his head to the side. Choking on his own blood isn’t the way he wants to die. There’s someone lying next to him, on the floor, a mess of brown hair covering their features. They lie still, unresponsive. Squinting, Steve struggles to focus on the man. The arm. Silver chrome. He knows that arm. The clarity helps him focus a little, makes his thoughts a bit less hazy.

Steve tries to say Bucky’s name but it just comes out a choked, jumbled garble, the word caught in his throat. Tries to reach out to shake him awake, but barely manages more than a twitch of fingers. He clenches his jaw, angry at himself. _No_. He’s stronger than this. He’s made it through worse before. Determined, he hauls himself onto his side with a grunt of pain, the shrapnel slicing deeper as he twists. He gasps, panting, and the bullet near his heart sends a shock of agony ripping through him. For a moment he can’t breathe but he reaches out anyway – even though it just sends more pain blossoming in his chest – fingers leaving a slick of blood on Bucky’s metal arm. His hand slips again, and is all this blood on the floor really his? Surely there’s too much – but before he can think any more about it someone is rolling him onto his back again and speaking.

“Woah, Cap, try not to move,” Clint’s saying, and Steve takes in a juddering breath as Clint presses down on his chest again, bruising. “You’ve lost enough blood already.” Steve tries to speak.

“Bucky, is h-he-”

“He’s fine,” Clint interrupts, glancing at Bucky’s unmoving form. “He’s just…taking a nap.”

Clint mumbles an apology, gingerly grasping Steve’s jaw and placing an arrow lengthways between his teeth.

“Normally I’d give you some morphine before I do this but the stuff in the med kit isn’t strong enough to do anything for you anyway,” Clint says. “Think they’ve got some bear tranquilizer back at base though.”

Steve momentarily wonders what Clint’s about to do, thoughts too hazy, but before he can figure it out the archer pours a liquid on his side. He shouts in pain, biting down on the arrow and legs kicking out; it feels like flames licking at his skin, burning and molten hot. Clint struggles but manages to hold him down – which says a lot about the state he’s in, really – and pours the liquid over his shoulder too. The flames fade to a more tolerable sharp sting and Steve is left feeling more than a little lightheaded, panting and cold. Clint takes the arrow from his teeth and it clatters to the floor as he wipes the sweat from Steve’s brow.

Clint carries on talking - it's something he does when he's stressed - but Steve can't seem to process the words. Maybe he's just talking to try and make sure he says awake, but Steve must have drifted again because the next thing he knows he’s being hauled onto one of those hospital beds and someone is shining a light in his eyes.

It feels like there are dozens of people surrounding him, all chattering urgently between themselves but he doesn’t understand enough medical terminology to really know what they’re saying. Someone starts to cut away his suit and he chokes on a gasp when they peel the shredded fabric away from his wounds, the fibres merging with flesh. There’s the prick of a needle in his neck, and _finally_ , some fucking morphine. His thoughts turn hazier.

“Steve!”

Suddenly he’s wide awake again. Natasha. Her voice cuts through the fog with startling clarity. He tries to sit up, tries to look for her. It doesn’t matter. Natasha. She’s by his side in a second, brow furrowed with worry and pushing one of the doctors out of the way. Natasha. She leans down, a gust of her breath against his lips. Pain seems secondary now. She pulls away with blood on her lips. His blood. Her eyes flicker across his face and his body, fingertips hovering inches away from him as if she’s afraid to touch.

“What happened?”

Steve tries to think, because honestly he can’t quite remember all of what happened. He thinks he can see tears in her vibrant eyes but right now all he can focus on is the fact that she’s _here._ She’s with him. He grasps at her hand.

“Marry me,” he pleads. _God, marry me.  
_

He’d be lying if he said the question hasn’t been on his mind for some time now. But he knows Natasha doesn’t share the same values he was raised with, and while he’d decided that he _will_ ask, he’s scared of how she might react when he does so. When he’d told Clint and Bucky about his intentions, he’d done it purely to see how they thought she might react. Clint had his doubts, and Bucky hadn’t said anything on the matter.

But Steve knows one thing. He isn’t afraid anymore, because suddenly he's shockingly aware of the fact that he doesn’t know if he’ll get the chance to ask again. _What if I don't make it?_

“Nat, say you’ll marry me.”

She doesn’t seem to know what to say, eyes wide and lips parted. He doesn’t really know how he expects her to react anyway. Another needle is jabbed into his neck. It’s a much heavier dose this time, and he can feel it working into his system after only a few seconds. He blinks sluggishly, Natasha’s hand slipping from his grasp.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurts hastily. He thinks she might be crying. Everything’s too blurry to make out anything other than her vibrant red hair.

“What?” he mumbles, limbs heavy. Surely, he must have misheard her? The morphine’s playing tricks on his mind.

“I said I’m pregnant, Steve,” she repeats. There's a tremor in her voice and now he's certain she’s crying. "You can't leave me."

He blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet nobody thought that's how Steve was going to find out about the baby did they? xD Aaaaaaahhhh why do I do this I am sorry. I had so many conflicting feelings about posting this. I think because I was going places I never thought I would go, usually it's just porn or fluff. But I thought I had put it off long enough xD
> 
> Hoping not to leave you guys hanging too long as half of the next chapter is written/blocked out
> 
> As always, comments/kudos make me eternally blissful


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a terrible author throw stones at me here is the update. Long chapter is long.

Natasha stopped crying some time ago.

Shedding tears doesn’t help anyone, especially not Steve.

They've had close calls before, more times than she would like to think about. It’s part of their job, risking their lives on an almost daily basis. Really it’s inevitable that one of them ends up in a hospital bed from time to time.

But it feels different this time. More real. More terrifying.

Yes, she’d cried at first, when he’d asked her to marry him. She’d cried because he didn’t know what he was asking of her, and because the taste of his blood had still been on her lips. She’d cried because she’d been in shock and frightened, seeing him like that.

Now, she just feels numb, watching the surgeons work hurriedly through a glass window in an adjacent room. They’ve been working on him for what feels like hours now, and the harsh, urgent panic she had felt earlier has settled into an uncomfortable, heavy lump in her throat and chest.

It’s like being stuck in limbo, not knowing whether to rejoice or grieve. Purgatory teetering on a knife edge.

“He’ll be okay, you know,” Sam says suddenly, from his place beside her. “He’s always okay.” 

“What makes you so sure?” Natasha asks under her breath, more to herself than in response to Sam. 

"You really think the stubborn bastard would let himself die without knowing if you'll marry him or not?" he jokes dryly. He moves as if to put a hand on her shoulder in comfort, but she glances sharply at him and he seems to think better of it, arm dropping loosely to his side. He sobers. "Especially not...you know, with a baby and all." 

Sam purposely drops his gaze to her stomach. That's right. The Baby. That’s why it feels different. Before, only Natasha would have had to find a way to cope with losing Steve. She could probably let it destroy her.

But now, she’ll have their child to think about too, to try and stay strong for. Only she isn’t sure she has the strength for both of them.

“I guess you all know now, then,” she muses aloud, forcing the thought out of her head. “About Steve and me. And the baby.”

She says it more for Tony's benefit,  who has been unusually quiet at the back of the room so far . Sam had already known about their physical relationship since that time he caught them half naked and all over each other in the garage. But she doesn’t think he had any idea how serious things were, even at that point. There are few other members of the team here, Vision and Wanda opting to give her some space. She guesses Wanda (and by extentsion, Vision) must have known for some time too, with her telepathic abilities. Clint’s having his injuries seen to in the normal medical ward and Bucky is locked up in containment, probably heavily restrained and still unconscious.  Tony chooses to pipe into the conversation. 

“Rogers kinda let the cat out the bag when he asked you to marry him on the way to the operating theatre, yeah.”

Sam snorts under his breath, and Stark makes his way over to the window to stand beside them. He carries on speaking.

“The man’s more of a diva than _I_ am. Honestly, proposing marriage on his deathbed?” A pause, before he turns to Sam. “Wait, you do realise what this makes you, right?” he says suddenly, and his upbeat tone makes Natasha bristle. How can he act so normal at a time like this?

“Not the time, Tony,” Sam replies, picking up on Natasha’s discomfort.

“Uncle Sam. You are literally going to be Uncle Sam,” Tony continues, either registering Sam’s warning tone or choosing to ignore it. Probably the latter.

“Tony,” Sam presses. Natasha bites her tongue.

“I can’t believe we literally have Uncle Sam and Captain America living in the same star-spangled building. Next thing you know we’ll have Abraham Lincoln in the White House again.”

“Will you just shut up?” Natasha snaps, turning to Stark. “Steve’s fighting for his life and you’re making jokes?!”

“It’s a coping mechanism, if you haven’t noticed,” he bites back, face stoic. “You think this is easy for me to watch? For any of us?”

“Oh, I don’t know; you tell me, is it easy?” Natasha spits, letting anger overtake all other emotions.

“Just because we argue sometimes doesn’t mean he’s not one of the best men I know,” Tony says fiercely, fixing his gaze on her and crossing his arms. Natasha sees his cool exterior crack a little. He lets out a short, sardonic laugh. “Maybe this is easier to watch for _you_ – do you even feel _anything_? I’ve always wondered, Miss Russian Winter-”

“-You have no _idea_ what I feel,” she snaps, and a gust of breath is knocked from Tony’s lungs when his back hits the window with a loud thud, Natasha’s forearm across his throat. She briefly debates replacing her arm with a blade. Too far. Too fucking far.

How _dare_ he cast doubt over Natasha’s feelings? Undermine her devotion?

Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Devotion. This fierce _need_ that she feels to be with Steve, the shattering fear of losing him? It’s more than just an ‘I love you’. She needs him more than she ever has before, more than she ever thought possible. More than life, and it’s only now that she realises it. Is there anything she won’t do for him? She staggers back, and Tony rubs at this throat.

“Get out,” she whispers, trying hide the tremor from her voice. Tony looks like he’s about to say something but Sam steps in before he can, taking firm hold of the engineer’s bicep and pulling him from the room, telling him they’ll see if there’s anything they can do for Clint or Bucky.

The door clicks shut behind them, and Natasha lets her back slide down the wall until she’s curling her knees under her chin and tears are welling up in her eyes again.

 _Crying doesn’t help anyone_ , she tells herself mentally again as she draws in a shuddering breath, lip trembling. But still she doesn’t try to fight it.

It doesn’t help anyone, except maybe herself.

 

* * *

 

Steve pulls through.

They finally move him out of surgery into a private room, and Natasha waits.

She waits for by his side, some foolish part of her brain afraid that if she leaves him something bad will happen. She isn’t sure why she keeps her fingers loosely wrapped around a gun – she trusts everyone here with Steve’s life – but for some reason it makes her feel a little better. The steady sound of Steve’s slow breathing eases her racing heartbeat, a reassuring rhythm.

After an hour or so a young nurse knocks on the door, pushing a metal trolley laden with muslin cloths and steel bowls and a plethora of medical implements. She comes to a stop at the foot of the bed, as if waiting for Natasha’s permission. Natasha looks up at the nurse. She’s pretty, a brunette, and looks more than a little intimidated. She’s young.

“The doctors sent me to clean him up a little,” the girl announces briskly, with only a slight mumble towards the end despite her initial hesitation. Natasha nods. Though the areas surrounding his dressings are clean, there is still plenty of dried blood and dirt on Steve’s skin. The nurse busies herself with moving the trolley a little closer and taking a cloth, soaking it in whatever the bowls held before wringing it out. It smells clinical, like bleach. The cloth touches Steve’s skin, just under his jaw. Delicately, almost a caress. Something like jealousy pangs in Natasha’s chest. It’s probably just Natasha’s head making her read into things too much. The nurse is just doing her job. But still.

“Wait,” Natasha says suddenly, standing up from her seat. “I’ll do it.”

The girl pauses.

“If you’re sure?” she asks, sounding hesitant.

“I’ll do it,” Natasha repeats, standing from her seat. She holsters her gun.

Setting the cloth down, the nurse takes a small step back as Natasha steps forward. She opens her mouth to say something, but then seems to change her mind. Leaving after a small nod, the nurse gently closes the door behind her.

It hurts Natasha to look at Steve like this, a solid ache in her chest. It doesn’t feel right. Her Steve is vibrant and strong and larger than life. Not pale and unmoving, lying in a hospital bed.

They’d had to dig deep to save him, she recalls the doctor saying earlier when they were moving him after surgery. By the time the surgeons had finished dealing with the damage left by the bullets, Steve’s body had already started trying to heal around other shrapnel wounds and they’d had to open him back up several times to get pieces out. The trauma caused had sent Steve’s body into deep shock, and he was burning through the medication so fast and so erratically he had even woken up at one point.

Sometimes the serum could be more of a curse than a blessing.

Taking a deep breath, she picks up the cloth left by the nurse and gently dabs it over his blood and dirt stained skin. She’s seen Steve heal small cuts and scrapes before in what feels like minutes, but even though it’s been hours he doesn’t look like he’s healed at all. She hopes that the serum is busy working on healing the more severe injuries first before the insignificant ones.

Natasha wrings the cloth out into an empty bowl, before dipping it back into the clear liquid and twisting again. His skin feels feverish to touch but the cloth leaves it cool, at least for a moment. She wrings the cloth out. Brings it up to his skin again, careful not to disturb the plastic oxygen tube in his nose. Wrings it out. Moves onto his shoulders, wiping away the grime and dirt. Douses a fresh cloth. Works around the needle in the crook of his elbow. Wrings it out. Down to his forearm and hands, in-between each calloused finger.

She carries on, letting the routine of it dull her thoughts and time slip away from her, and by the time she’s finally done he looks a little better. She feels better too. There’s more colour in his cheeks and less of a deathly pallor. He looks more like her Steve. A few of the cuts look a little smaller.

Somewhat happier, she sits back down in the chair next to the bed, letting herself relax a fraction.

She waits again, this time leaving her Glock on the table.

 

* * *

 

Clint’s the only one brave enough to approach her, and he does so with a smile, knuckles rapping on the door as he steps in. He’s still wearing most of his grime-coated uniform, but she can see the bandages stretched over his chest through the fresh white t-shirt he’s changed into.

“Told you he’d make it,” he says cheerily. Natasha glances at the cloths left on the trolley, still stained crimson with Steve’s blood. She wonders what kind of conversation they would be having if Clint hadn’t been able to get them back as quickly as he did. She thinks for a moment she might cry, but refuses to break down again. She probably used up all her tears before anyway.

“How’s Barnes?” she asks, changing the subject. “Is he still in holding?” They’ll probably want to keep him in the holding cells for a while until they know he isn’t going to get triggered again. She’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, however foolish that might have been. Maybe it had been inevitable. God knows she hadn’t managed to transition without a few hiccups along the way.

“Just woke up,” Clint tells her. “He’s talking about leaving, said he never should have come back after I told him what happened.”

“He really thinks Steve would let him go?” Natasha asks, puzzled. Though she can understand why James would react this way, she knows there is no way in hell Steve would ever let him leave like this.

 “He wanted to come see Steve, see how he’s doing but…didn’t trust himself,” Clint continues. _Didn’t trust himself not to kill anyone,_ Natasha thinks to herself. Clint doesn’t have to spell it out to her.

“You think he really will try and leave?”

“Maybe,” Clint shrugs, quickly wincing from his own injuries with the gesture, a hand on his gripping his chest.

“You okay?” Natasha asks, concerned. A couple of nurses had seen to Clint’s more minimal but still very painful injuries while Steve was in surgery, but sometimes these things have a way of becoming more serious than they might seem at first. He straightens up.

“Nothing a week’s best rest and sick pay won’t cure,” he grins. “Not gonna lie, I’m a little disappointed I won’t have some new battle scars to show off.” Natasha rolls her eyes at him, but she is definitely relieved even if she doesn’t say it. She doesn’t what she would have done had Clint been gravely injured as well as Steve. Sometimes Clint is the only one who can hold her together.

“And James? He’s okay?” Physically, if not mentally. Clint nods.

“He dropped all the guards before any of them even got close.”

A solemn moment passes between them as Clint remembers and Natasha imagines how it must have played out. It’s all a little too familiar, a prickling sensation at Natasha’s neck. She remembers all too well what it’s like to feel the tentative threads of control snap, and wake up with blood on her hands.

“I’ll talk to him,” she says. Try and get him to stay, at least until Steve is better. That’s the least she can do, and maybe her own experience – and failures –  can be of some help convincing him.

“You’ll probably have better luck than most,” Clint agrees, dragging a chair from the corner across the floor to settle next to her.

Neither of them speak for a while, content in comfortable silence. Natasha’s mind runs in circles, worrying about Steve, then worrying about the baby, almost downright _panicking_ about what he’d asked her before he went under, what she’s realised in the observation room and back around to worry about his condition again. It’s difficult to focus on one thing. She’d always been good at multitasking and making sense of situations – it’s part of her job after all – but right now it’s too much. Too close for comfort. It’s dizzying. Overwhelming.

When Steve was fighting for his life, it had been easy to let her fear rule her thoughts for a while. It had been even easier to slide into a numb kind of emptiness, because how could she make any kind of decision when she had just been waiting to see if he’d pull through? But now he seems to be stable everything else seems to seep back into the picture. How long will he be stable for? What if he lapses again? How is he going to react over her telling him she’s pregnant completely out of the blue, without warning? Will he even remember her saying that? What will happen now their relationship is public? It’s only ever a matter of time before gossip about these sorts of things travels. And Jesus, how the hell is she supposed to deal with the concept of _marriage_?

It’s too much. A year ago, if someone had told Natasha that she would be facing these kinds of dilemmas, she would have laughed in their face. Told them to get their head checked. Black Widow only ever need concern herself with the next mission.

Cursing under her breath, she releases a slow, shuddering exhale. She was never trained for these kind of situations. For the first time in decades, Natasha Romanoff is in too deep, in all the wrong ways.

Clint. Maybe Clint will know what to do. He’s helped her through so much over the years, even if he doesn’t realise half of it. He’s always been like a foundation for her – always there if she needs him – and she glances across to see if he’s-

-Asleep.

Neck crooked at what looks like a painful angle, his head lolls back over the chair, mouth hanging open. Legs sprawled out in front of him, his hands rest loosely over his stomach as he draws in deep, steady breaths. The exhaustion must have got to him. He’s only human, after all.

So that rules Clint out. For now. She doesn’t want to wake him.

She’ll just have to think this through for herself. Nothing she isn’t used to. Nothing she hasn’t done before. Simple. She’s gotten herself out of difficult situations a million times before.

So why does this feel different?

 _Because these aren’t choices you can make by yourself,_ her mind supplies. _This isn’t just some bad intel on a mission you can fix with a few amendments to an extraction plan._

Steve.

Steve is the one she needs to talk to, as much as the thought sends her stomach in knots. She’ll just have to get over her irrational fear of – of what? Opening up to him? Being rejected? Making the wrong choice? Losing him?

Natasha can’t quite figure out what she’s uncertain or afraid of. She knows what Steve would say, if he were awake. He’d tell her he loves her, and that they’d figure it out together, every step of the way. He’ll never push her away. He asked her to _marry_ him for Christ’s sake.

It _should_ be simple. Easier said than done.

But Natasha can’t make any of these decisions by herself. She never should have left it this long in the first place, hiding something as big as a miracle pregnancy from him.

So, sitting back in the chair, she waits for Steve to wake up.

 

* * *

 

Steve wakes suddenly, senses blaring.

The lights of the hospital room are too bright, blinding, everything so much _louder_ than it should be, assaulting his eardrums and making him dizzy. Head pounding, he tries to listen to the urgent sounding voices around him, to the beeps and blips of medical machinery. There’s no pain, but he can _feel_ it when the scalpel slices his skin open and his head swims. This has happened before, once in the War. He’d needed surgery once, only with the serum and his metabolism, anaesthetic amounts turned out to be mostly guesswork and he’d ended up waking up mid-operation. Which, to say the least, had not been pleasant. And an experience he doesn’t want to repeat.

His limbs are too heavy, but he manages to open his eyes a fraction, trying to force some kind of sound from his throat. One of the surgeons seems to notice, because he hears a worried _“He’s waking up!”_ and then there’s a needle sized amount of pressure in his neck and a mask being put over his nose and mouth.

He lets the tide of numbness wash over him.

 

* * *

 

The next time Steve wakes up, it’s under decidedly better circumstances. His surroundings are quiet, almost silent if it weren’t for the slow, steady beep of a heart monitor and the sound of his own deep breathing. He wakes slowly, easily, unlike the raucous alarm bells that had been screeching in his mind the last time. His torso throbs dully, not unbearable pain as it had been before but not definitely not comfortable either, like a heavy weight on his chest. His throat feels dry.

Part of him wants to stay right here, to drift off to sleep again and let his body recover a little more. But Natasha’s rushed voice echoes in his head, telling him things he’d never dared to even dream about, asking him to stay with her.

So he opens his eyes and tries to push himself upright.

“Steve!” She’s there almost instantly, pushing him back down. He doesn’t have the strength to resist. “What are you doing? You have to rest, do you have any idea how much blood you lost?”

“Nat,” he croaks hoarsely.

“You’ve only been out of surgery a few hours, you shouldn’t even be up. I’ll get the nurse-”

“-Nat,” he tries again. She’s fiddling with one of the machines.

“-Just stay there, don’t try to move, you might tear a suture-”

“Natasha,” he says, as firmly as he can. He manages to grasp at her arm. She shuts up this time and meets his gaze. “I’m okay.”

If he looks half as bad as he feels, then he probably doesn’t look okay at all but he seems to get through to her. She nods, sinking down to sit on the bed next to him, eyes never leaving his.

“You’re okay,” she exhales slowly, he thinks more for her own benefit than for his. Her shoulders visibly sag, tightly-wound tension ebbing from her body. “You’re okay,” she repeats. He offers her a weak smile.

She threads her fingers through his and there are a million things he wants to ask but the words are caught in his throat, silence stretching out between them. How does one ask if they are going to be a father or if they were hallucinating? If she’ll make an honest man out of him and walk down an aisle with a ring on her finger?

“Bucky,” he starts, because that’s the easiest subject to bring up. “Is he okay?”

“He’s shaken,” she replies. “But he’ll be fine.”

Steve feels like there’s something she’s not telling him, but doesn’t press the matter. As long as Bucky is alive and well, they can work everything else out later. There are other things to discuss. _Out with it, Rogers_ , he tells himself. He can’t ignore it any longer, memory and fantasy hazing together so much he can’t tell the difference anymore.

“Was it the drugs playin’ with my head or did you tell me you’re pregnant?” he blurts quickly. Tactless, really, but the only way he could think of saying it without mumbling and stammering like an idiot. She doesn’t say anything for a moment, like she's caught off guard. Then she straightens her posture and takes a deep breath.

“It wasn’t the drugs,” she says simply. Steve knows the words should bring some kind of clarity, some gravitas, but instead he finds himself unable to fully wrap his head around the idea. Natasha, pregnant? She can’t be. She’d told him that not long after they got together. Scientifically and biologically impossible, she’d said.

“I don’t understand,” he says, because he really, _really doesn’t_. Is he still asleep, and this is some fucked up dream?

“Neither do I,” Natasha exhales heavily. “I never thought…this could…I wasn’t…” She huffs out a breath, aggravated with herself. Inarticulate is not a word Steve would ever use to describe Natasha, but she seems to be having difficulty finding the words. He wonders if this is the first time she’s said it aloud, or if it’s just harder telling him. “I’ve had several tests done and all the results say the same thing.”

Steve doesn’t know what to think. He should be over the moon, hopes and dreams of a family he buried long ago rising to the surface, but he’s in too much shock to really comprehend it.

“How long?” he asks. How long has she been carrying their child?

“About thirteen weeks, we think.”

“We?”

“Doctor Fine and I,” she explains. “He’s the one who ran all the tests.”

Another moment passes in silence, where Natasha purses her lips and Steve lets his head fall back onto the pillow to stare at the ceiling, all of his physical discomfort forgotten in the face of this new knowledge.

They’re going to be parents?

They’re going to be _parents_.

He wonders how long Natasha has known, but honestly he isn’t sure it matters. It had probably taken her a while to wrap her head around the idea too. He thinks back, to when Natasha had inexplicably first started feeling unwell. Had that been morning sickness? How were they to know, back then? Pregnancy had never been on the cards.

“Steve?” she asks, voice quiet. He looks back at her. “I’m scared.”

Then it hits him, harder than that explosion had on the mission.

This is really happening.

No wonder she’s scared. This is a whole new world of things she never thought she would have to deal with since she was practically a child herself. Parenthood is frightening enough for even the most well-adjusted adults and it’s not like they have what would be considered a normal life.

The Avengers facility doesn't come equipped with a nursery.

“I’m scared too,” he admits, suddenly realising that actually, he is. He has no idea what to do, what to expect or what to think of anything right now, no matter how much his heart is swelling with excitement and warmth. It’s always pretty terrifying to be thrown in at the deep end with no warning or rescue plan.

“Doctor Fine says there’s a high chance I won’t be able to carry to it to full term,” she continues. A high chance that she’ll miscarry. “That my body will reject it.” Steve’s heart aches at the fear in her eyes. He grasps her hand.

“None of that matters,” he starts, desperate to make that look in her eyes go away. To reassure her. “We just…we just have to be rational about it. Take things a day at a time, whatever happens. We’ll find a way through this, together.”

She kisses him right then, and though it burns to even move a muscle right now, the taste of her lips scorches him even more and he kisses back just as eagerly because it feels like he’s more alive than he’s ever been.

“I thought you might be mad,” she breathes against his lips when she pulls away a fraction.

“How could I be mad?” he asks, puzzled. A flurry of emotions cross her face, some of which make Steve worry if he even wants to know the answer to his question. She seems to settle on an answer.

“For not telling you sooner, for one,” she says. He attempts a laugh.

“It wasn’t exactly the best timing,” he admits.

“Look who’s talking,” she smirks.

“Right,” he says, drawing out the syllable and feeling rather sheepish. She’s right. Maybe on the way into an operating theatre hadn’t been the best time to propose either.

“It wasn’t fair of you to ask me like that,” she says, a little more solemnly. Steve knows she’s right. Could he have picked a worse time to ask? If she says yes, he wants it to be because she wants to marry him and not out of some obligation to a dying man.

“Thought I was gonna die,” he says with a weak smile, as if that justifies it.

“Has anyone ever told you how dramatic you are?”

“Once or twice,” he says, Peggy’s voice ringing in his ears. The corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile. Okay, she’d told him that on a near daily basis back in the War. But Natasha doesn’t have to know that. “Did you…have chance to think about it?” he asks hopefully

Again, she doesn’t answer straight away, and Steve finds himself holding his breath. _Say yes,_ he thinks. _Please, just say yes, say you’ll do it-_

“-I’m not sure now is really the time to think about it, at least until you’re better,” she states diplomatically, trying to divert his attention and still not give him an answer

“So that’s a no then?” He’d be lying if he said his heart didn’t sink a little. Okay, a _lot_.

“It’s not a no,” she says carefully, and his heart lifts. “But it’s not a yes either.”

It plummets back down again. Not a Yes, but not a No either? What does that mean?

“I don’t know if getting married is something I will ever want…but if I do one day, then I think it would be with you.”

Steve pulls her down for another kiss, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face.

It’s a Maybe. A Someday, if things work out. And if that’s the closest he can get from her then he’ll take it in a heartbeat.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” she replies instantly, and it still amazes him every time she utters those words. “I just think there are other things more important right now.”

“No, you’re right,” he agrees. Things like figuring out how to be parents. Things like trying to help Bucky. Things like getting him out of a hospital bed. Natasha sits back, a small smirk on her face.

“And by the way, everyone knows about us now, so I think we can expect some quality trolling from Tony as payback for being last to know.”

 

* * *

 

A few days pass before Steve is allowed to leave the watchful eye of the medical ward and back to his own quarters. Natasha leaves with him, and it’s nice to be able to hold her hand in full view of anyone who passes them as they walk down the corridor, his stomach fluttering.

Steve still isn’t feeling one hundred percent, so by the time they reach his floor he’s a little relieved to be able to climb into bed. While he’s healing – especially from such severe injuries – he usually sleeps and eats a lot more than usual. He thinks it’s something to do with the serum burning through all his reserves and using energy to heal his body. All of his bodily functions seem to speed up, as if working overtime.

Natasha helps him out of his shirt so she can check over his dressings, and a small part of Steve is amused (not to mention a little flattered) to see her playing the part of fussy nurse. A shiver goes down his spine when her fingertips brush his skin. Suddenly he’s biting back a groan, blood rushing through his body.

The other thing that works overtime when he’s in recovery mode; his sex drive.

“What are you doing?” Natasha yelps as he pulls her down to straddle his lap and starts to push up her t-shirt.

“Strict bed rest, doctor’s orders,” he says innocently, and Natasha responds with a devilish smile, pulling the shirt over her head and leaning down to kiss him. It’s only been a few days since the incident but so much has happened it feels like a lifetime ago. Not to mention that it’s hard to get quality time together in a hospital room and he’s been mainly sleeping his way through the hours. His head swims and he can tell he’s not the only one who has been craving some intimacy from the way her hands skim his chest and her hips roll against him. He sucks in a sharp breath when she hits a spot on his side that’s still sore and she sits back, a concerned look on her face.

“Are you sure you want to-”

He cuts her off by pulling her back down, sealing her lips with his. If he wanted it badly before then he downright _needs_ it now he’s tasted her and her weight is on top of him. It won’t be strenuous – she can do all the work in this position – it’ll just be _release_ , sweet release from this burning want. He fumbles with the button of her jeans and she reaches behind her to unclasp her bra.

Only he pauses when his hands brush her stomach, feeling the skin there.

He even stops kissing her, craning his neck down to try to catch a glimpse. It might just be his mind playing tricks on him, imagining things that aren’t there. It could be too early to tell. But he _thinks_ there’s a slight swell to her lower abdomen where there is usually corded muscle. Is there? His hand glides over the plane of her stomach again, trying to feel what he thinks he’s seeing.

“What’s wrong?” she asks between nips to his neck.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” he thinks aloud.

“Not if you don’t finish undressing me it isn’t.” She catches his hand in her own and sets it back onto her jeans zipper, twisting her hips as if to stress her point.

“No, not that,” he says, pushing her up to a sitting position. He can see it now, like this. It’s tiny, probably easily missed to anyone else, but he knows her body better than his own and there is definitely a slight swell there. “I mean…we’re really having a baby aren’t we? We’re gonna be a family?”

It seems stupid really, to ask, but Steve is still getting his head around the idea as reality instead of whimsical fantasy. But this is a physical change that he can see and feel and suddenly it seems to solidify the concept in his head. Natasha swallows.

“I’m afraid so,” she jokes lightly, though Steve can see through her tone. He places his hand over hers and squeezes reassuringly.

“Wait,” he says suddenly. Natasha gives him a questioning look.

“What the hell are we going to name them?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So most people don't know this, but it's not the injuries that kill you, you have to watch out for when your body goes into shock because that actually poses a bigger risk to your life. There's your random morbid fact for the day ;D
> 
> I thought I would put most of the notes at the end because I didn't want to delay you guys from reading the chapter any further xD  
> There are a few reasons this chapter took so long; my laptop got a nasty virus and died, but not before corrupting my main back up hard drive too so I had to re-write the entire thing. Next, I moved to London for a new job and to give you an idea of how little free time I have right now, last week I worked close to 96 hours. So there's that. And also when I was re-writing it I was just not happy with it and got writer's block for like a week xD
> 
> Shoutout to heyfrenchfreudiana for beta-ing and being all round amazing through the traumatic writing process <3 <3
> 
> I can't thank you guys enough for your patience, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!! You guys are the best <3  
> As always, comments/kudos etc welcome :D
> 
> Only one chapter left!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are still reading this, I do not have the words to thank you enough for your patience! More notes at the end, I don't want to keep you waiting any longer
> 
> Special shout out to Heyfrenchfreudiana for putting up with my incoherent screeching about this chapter for probably much longer than she should have. I love you long time <3
> 
> Also, in the comments on the previous chapter, a few of you thought maybe Nat would be having twins because I used the word "them". So I will just clear up now, it's not twins, I was just trying to avoid using a gender-specific pronoun. Love the idea though! :)

It isn’t supposed to happen like this.

She’s only just hit the eight month mark.

She’s supposed to have another month of Steve being insufferable and doting on her night and day. Pepper is supposed to take her shopping for baby clothes because Natasha keeps putting it off. She’s supposed to have another month of Clint making jokes about how she’s going to end up trading in her sports car for a minivan and how she won’t be able to sneak up on anyone because they’ll smell the baby vomit on her clothes before she even enters the room.

Steve isn’t supposed to be away on a mission.

It isn’t supposed to hurt when she moves, like a knife twisting in her stomach.

And she _definitely_ isn’t supposed to wake up with blood between her thighs and on the sheets at 3am.

Suddenly it’s difficult to breathe, fear filling her throat.

“Agent Romanoff, I’m detecting elevated heart rate and stress levels in both you and the baby,” Friday says.

“No shit,” she chokes out, forcing herself to sit up. She wipes at the sweat on her brow. _Stay calm_ , she tells herself. _Just stay calm_. “Is Steve on his way back yet?”

There’s a pause as the A.I. finds out, and it feels like a lifetime before Friday answers even though it’s probably less than a second.

“Captain Rogers is currently engaged in combat,” she informs Natasha. She curses under her breath.

“Put me through to Barnes,” she gasps. Bucky is the closest, having moved to the floor above Steve’s about a month ago. She can barely find the strength to stand, let alone get down to the infirmary levels without help.

“Natasha?” Bucky’s voice fills the room. It doesn’t sound like she woke him up.

“Get down here, _now_ ,” Natasha instructs, as firmly as she can.

“What’s-”

“-There’s something wrong,” she gasps, screwing her eyes shut from the pain.

“On my way,” Bucky responds in a clipped tone, no further explanation needed.

“I’ve informed Captain Rogers of the situation and alerted medical to prepare for you,” Friday says. “Try and stay calm, Agent. Breathe.”

“Sure,” Natasha mutters sarcastically, feeling like she’s about to pass out cold. God, this is bad, isn’t it? She’d gotten so close she’d almost hoped that the pregnancy would pass without incident. Yes, she’d had to be careful about diet and exertion but she’d made it eight months without any major incidents.

Until now.

What if this is what she’s feared all along? Her body rejecting the baby? Giving up? Shutting down?

“Tasha?” Bucky’s voice calls from the other room.

“Bedroom,” she replies, hoping it’s loud enough for him to hear. It is, and he appears in the doorway a few seconds later, fully dressed. He freezes when he sees her. There’s a lot of blood.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” she jokes, even though she knows she didn’t. Bucky sleeps only a handful of the hours that he should, but seems to be getting by just fine. At the moment anyway.

“Jesus, Tasha, what happened?” he asks, crossing the room and kneeling in front of her. His hands hover in mid-air, as if he’s afraid to touch her, not sure what to do or where to look first.

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t move, still looking at her like a rabbit in headlights. She feels dizzier by the second. “Help me stand up then,” she prompts hazily.

“What?” he says, sounding shell-shocked.

“Medical wing,” she replies. _Come on, Natasha,_ she thinks to herself. _Shake it off. The Baby needs you to._ The thought sends a sliver of determination through her. “Come on, Barnes, you’ve been in warzones and now a little blood is putting you off?” she says dryly, clutching at her stomach. “Help me stand up.” The message seems to get through.

“Right,” he says, coming to his senses and standing. “Medical.”

He darts to the other side of the room and grabs a dressing gown off a hook, helping her slip her arms through. She wonders why but then remembers she’s only wearing some pyjama shorts and a t shirt, both of which probably have quite a lot of blood on them. The extra warmth might help keep her body going into shock for a little longer too.

Bucky slings her arm over his shoulder, wrapping his own around her waist. With some effort, she manages to stand, using his solid frame to lean against.

“I can carry you, if it’s easier,” he suggests.

“You are _not_ carrying me anywhere, Barnes,” she growls. “I’m not dying yet.”

“If you say so,” he replies uncertainly. Together they head out of the bedroom towards the elevator. “Jeez, Steve’s gonna have a fucking heart attack when he finds out about this.”

“Probably,” she agrees.

“Captain Rogers and Lord Thor have already begun the return journey,” Friday informs them. Bucky laughs.

“You hear that, Tash? He’s already on his way,” he assures, slipping into Russian mid-sentence. “< _You’re gonna be fine. The baby too. You’re gonna be fine._ >”

Natasha nods, too weak to say anything in response while she’s concentrating all her energy on getting to the elevator. Bucky hits the call button, and the doors slide open immediately with a chime.

Stepping into the elevator, Natasha can feel herself sagging against Bucky more and more as they wait for to reach the medical wards. He tilts her face up to look at her eyes, and she finds him a little blurry, the lights in the ceiling too bright.

“< _Tasha. You still with me?_ >” he asks, even more concerned. Finally, the doors open to the sick bay.

“< _I’m fine,_ >” she mumbles, forcing herself out of the elevator. “< _Where’s Steve?_ ” With every step she can feel her grasp on consciousness wavering. It’s not right. Steve needs to be here. He has to be. She’s too scared to do this alone.

Bucky’s kind of expecting it when she passes out, and takes her weight in his arms before she can hit the floor. He carries her the rest of the way to the end of the corridor where the surgeons are busy prepping for her, even though he knows she’ll scold him for it when she wakes up.

 _If_ she wakes up.

But he doesn’t let himself think about that. Or what it would do to Steve.

He can’t.

So he waits, heart in his throat. She’ll be fine, right?

She’s an Avenger. She’s the Black fucking Widow.

But more than that, she’s Natasha Romanoff.

“She’ll make it,” Bucky says aloud as he watches them take her into surgery. “< _She’ll make it_ >.”

 

* * *

 

 

Aliens.

Why is it always aliens lately?

It’s only a small group of them this time, but they’re still putting up a good fight due to the fact there’s less than half the team here.

Steve ducks behind his shield, bracing against the impact of the blaster pulse. In the corner of his eyes there’s a flash of red and silver – Thor – and Sam swoops overhead. Steve knocks one of his attackers to the ground with a well-aimed punch, using the momentum to tackle another as he swings around.

“Captain Rogers?” Friday says in his earpiece.

“Yes?” Steve grunts, dodging another blow.

“There has been a complication with Agent Romanoff’s condition,” Friday starts, in a tone that makes Steve’s blood turn cold. “She has to be taken into surgery now if we are to save both her and the baby.”

Steve falters, his kick glancing off the alien in front of his instead of hitting it square in the chest. It feels like he’s the one who’s been hit.

“What happened? When? Is she-”

“I am still running diagnostics. Sergeant Barnes is with her but she is requesting your presence.”

It feels like he can’t breathe. He vaguely sees Thor throw his hammer at an alien right in front of Steve, about to attack, but it doesn’t really register.

“How bad is it?” he asks. It feels like the words came out of someone else’s mouth. Before Friday can answer, Thor puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him down to his knees. The impact seems to jolt Steve back into reality just in time to register a sharp pulse of crackling blue light radiate from just above him, so close it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Raising his head, Steve quickly looks around them to see the blast had knocked every single one of their opponents within twenty feet to the ground, most unconscious, a few groaning. Mjolnir glows white-hot, but the spark fades after a few seconds.

“Man, why didn’t you just do that before?” Sam exclaims exasperatedly, landing by their side as Steve gets to his feet. Thor grins at Sam.

“And waste a good fight?” he jokes, feigning confusion. He sobers and turns to Steve. “You are needed. We can deal with these vile creatures if you wish to leave,” he continues, gesturing to their defeated foes.

Steve nods. Their comms are always linked during missions so Sam and Thor will have heard the news about Natasha as well. The shock is wearing off and now the panic seems to be settling in. This wasn’t supposed to happen yet. He’s supposed to _be_ there. He feels sick.

“Right,” he agrees. “Shit.”

Steve knows he should have probably thanked them, and usually he would have done. But he’s already running back to the jet before the thought even crosses his mind. Sliding into the seat, he starts up the engine and slings the seatbelts over his shoulders.

“Friday, co-pilot,” he instructs, securing his headset. The consoles next to him light up as Friday takes control of the system.

“Shall I inform Miss Natasha and Sergeant Barnes that you are on your way?”

“Yes,” he says firmly. The jet’s engine rumbles as Steve does the final checks on the control panel before launch. “No way I’m gonna miss the birth of my own child,” he mutters to himself.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve pulls off a somewhat less than perfect landing,  already half unbuckling his seatbelt, but he doesn’t care. Grabbing his shield and hurrying to the door, he sees Friday has already started to open it for him.

“Natasha,” Steve says quickly, striding out of the jet. “Where is she?”

“In medical, wing sixteen,” Friday replies as Steve sprints to the elevator. “Her condition is currently stable.”

Bucky’s waiting for him when the elevator doors slide open to the medical floor. He strides out past him, not wanting to waste even a second. The journey back had felt like an eternity, throat thick with worry all the way.

“Took you long enough,” Bucky says dryly, following Steve down the corridor.

“Is she okay?” Steve’s heart is pounding in his chest,

“They haven’t moved her out of theatre yet but she’s okay, yeah,” Bucky replies. “She needs to rest but she’ll recover.”

The words don’t really seem to comfort Steve. He needs to _see_ her. Needs to see she’s okay with his own two eyes. God, why hadn’t he been here? Why did he have to be on a mission on the other side of the planet? 

“Down here,” Bucky grunts, tugging on Steve’s arm, pulling him back down a corridor he’d just walked straight past in his rush.

“The baby?”

“He’s fine too, we think. They took him to do some tests just to be safe because of the complications but they think he’s fine. I’m just glad we managed to get her down here so quick-”

 Bucky stops talking, because he must have realised that Steve’s stopped listening. He turns to face him, standing stock still a few paces back and feeling like his heart is trying to claw its way out through his throat, his chest about to burst.

“I…I have a son?”

Bucky smiles, concern vanishing for a moment – the first real smile Steve has seen him give in decades – and claps him around the shoulders.

“Yeah,” he says, taking the couple of steps back towards Steve. “Little fucker looks just like you.”

Steve laughs – he can’t help it – sheer glee bubbling up in his chest and spilling out. Natasha’s going to be fine and healthy and probably pissed as hell that he missed everything but they have a _son_ and nothing else seems to matter, they made it through, despite –

“-So what are you waiting for?” Bucky says, “Get in there, you idiot.”

Steve swears his cheeks hurt from smiling so broadly already but his chest is tight with apprehension. Suddenly all the months of preparation don’t seem to matter. All the books he’s read, all the hours he’s spent trawling the internet. All the times he’s dashed out to the store because of one of Natasha’s weird cravings and all the times he’s held her hair back while she battled through ‘morning’ sickness, no matter what time of day it was. All the times he’s waited with her, hands entwined for what felt like test result number eight thousand and sixty-three to make sure things were progressing normally and all the times he’s told her everything would be fine.

It all seems to melt away. How could any of it ever really prepare him for how it feels right now, heart in his throat and beating a thousand miles a minute?

Bucky says his name, jolting him back into reality.

“What?” Steve asks, looking at his friend.

“I said, at least take your helmet off before you go in,” he repeats dryly. “Your mother would have a fit if she were here.”

Steve fumbles with the fastening at his jaw, fingers suddenly feeling far too large and yes, his mother probably would roll in her grave at the sight of him right now, covered in dirt and grime and alien blood and about to see his new-born son for the first time. He hesitates for a moment, before slinging his shield off his shoulders and pushing it into Bucky’s arms, turning to head into the room Natasha is in before he can protest.

“Tasha?”

There’s still some surgeons around, writing notes and murmuring to each other but all Steve can see is Natasha.

Natasha, lying still and pale like snow. For a second his heart plummets, all his worst fears resurfacing.

“Nat?” he says tightly, breath caught in his throat. “It’s me, it’s Steve.” Her skin is cold when he tentatively brings a hand up to touch her cheek. Searching her features for some kind of response, Steve holds his breath, trying not to think about the times he’s seen her in his nightmares looking like this. If anything had happened to her…god, he can’t even think about it.

He thumbs her hair off her face, watching her lips for signs of her breath, shallow but definitely there. A sliver of the tension in his chest loosens slightly. A few more moments pass where it still feels like Steve can’t breathe but then her eyelashes flutter open, brow furrowed.

“As soon as I’m out of this bed,” she starts, voice hoarse but eyes clear as her gaze focuses on him. “I’m going to kick your ass.”

Steve feels like his chest is about to burst from happiness and gratitude. He laughs, not knowing what else to do, because she’s awake and threatening to beat him to the ground and for a second there he hadn’t been sure if he’d ever hear her say that to him again.

“Nat, god, you’re okay, for a second I thought…”

He can’t even finish the sentence before he’s kissing her, tears stinging at his eyes but he doesn’t care, can’t even think past the solid ache of happiness in his heart. She doesn’t kiss back much, but Steve doesn’t mind because she’s no doubt exhausted.

“The baby,” she says through muffled lips. “They took him, it was too early." He doesn’t miss the worry and fear in her voice, veiled as it is. “Something went wrong, it wasn’t time and there was so much blood, Steve-”

Steve shushes her, shaking his head. He holds her hands in both of his, presses them to his lips.

“Bucky said they took him for some tests, just to be on the safe side,” he reassures her. “Things look good.”

Natasha nods and rests her head back on the pillows. Swallowing deeply, her shoulders relax somewhat. Tests. That’s normal right? And Steve would already know if things looked bad, right? She forces a few slow, even breaths out, closing her eyes and grounding herself in the warmth of his hands around hers. The pain seems to hover at the edge of her senses, and she pushes it back.

“What were you thinking?” she asks dryly. “Missing the birth of your own son?”

Granted, she hadn’t been conscious for it either, but at least she had been in the room. He looks mortified for a second, but then notices the smirk tugging at her lips and the way the corners of his eyes crease when he smiles makes her heart swell. He looks so beautiful, all grimy and dishevelled and sheepish and _hers._ She still not quite got used to the idea, even now.

“Why do I feel like that’s going to be thrown at me in every argument we ever have in future?” he jokes lightly.

“Because it will be,” she says simply, not even trying to hide the smugness from her eyes. He laughs, with a small nod of defeat.

“Really messed that one up, didn’t I?” Natasha sobers.

“We couldn’t have known.” It had happened so fast she’d barely understood what was happening herself, a blur in her mind when she tries to remember.

“I know,” he says glumly, head bowed. “Doesn’t make it okay though.”

He’s sunk to his knees next to the bed, still holding her hands and head hung low. Her heart aches for him, because she knows what he must be thinking. He’ll never get that moment back.

He straightens up, face determined.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he tells her firmly. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

She squeezes his hand with as much strength as she can muster.

“I’m fine,” she says, because pain seems secondary right now. “I’m fine.”

  

* * *

 

 

The doctors give Natasha some more medication for the pain, despite some initial resistance. They argued that she shouldn’t even be awake after such a procedure, her body needing allthe help pit can get so she can start to recover, and eventually she gives in, fatigue winning out over stubbornness.

Steve stays with her while they move her out of the theatre to a private room, and just as the nurses are finishing up, Bucky raps his metal knuckles on the door with a sudden, metallic clang.

“How’s she doin’?”

Steve exhales roughly, having been bombarded with information from the doctors over the last half hour about her condition.

“I’m not sure we’re out of the woods yet, but the main thing she needs is rest,” Steve tells him. They’ll keep monitoring Natasha over the next few days at least, and she probably won’t be out of hospital for the next couple of weeks. The pregnancy and the trauma of the birth itself has taken a toll, but a toll the doctors seem pretty confident she can overcome.

Bucky nods, but smiles nonetheless.

“She’s tough,” he agrees. “Tougher than both of us, probably.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, because Bucky’s most likely right. But it’s only natural for him to worry, right?  Glancing at Bucky, he notices that he’s still carrying his shield and helmet for him, hanging loosely from his right arm. Bucky seems to realise too, and walks over to where Steve had discarded the top half of his uniform on a chair earlier on. Placing the helmet gingerly on top of the suit, he shrugs the shield off his arm and sets it down next to the chair.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Bucky offers. His tone is nonchalant but his eyes are sincere. He nods to Natasha. “You know, for both of you.”

Steve pauses before answering, because he already thought of something Bucky could do to help out sometimes months ago but hadn’t figured out how to bring up the subject with him yet. The Winter Soldier hasn’t made an appearancein a few months and Bucky is making leaps and bounds of progress every day since Wanda started helping him control and separate his memories. He’d been doubtful at first about having yet another person poke around in Bucky’s head, but Wanda explained there were ways to help Bucky without her ever having to enter his mind. She is the expert after all. And Bucky had agreed to try it, so Steve hadn’t been able to argue. He glances to the remaining nurse, seemingly absorbed in her protocols and clipboard to bother with their conversation.

“I was thinking,” Steve starts cautiously, eyes sliding from Bucky to his shield. Bucky follows his gaze. “Maybe you could carry that for me every once in a while?”

It makes sense, really. With a new born he and Natasha will be so tired it might even be considered dangerous to send them both out on missions. Even though Steve knows he can function and fight even after a couple of days without sleep thanks to the serum, everyone has limits and he suspects that a baby will be pushing both his and Natasha’s. Raising a child is never easy, and it’s unlike anything either of them have ever done before. If he were to go out on a mission when he shouldn’t, at the very least his judgement will be compromised and, at the root of it all, that’s how people get killed.

So, he figures, why not share the workload? Steve will get to spend more time with his family – because that’s what they are now, right? – and Bucky can ease himself back into going out on missions.

Steve offers a small smile, even though he’s holding his breath in anticipation of Bucky’s response.

Bucky just looks at him like he’s gone mad, mouth hanging slightly open.

“I’m not…You can’t ask me to…I mean I…I can’t,” he stammers tightly. Steve closes the distance between them, placing both hands firmly on Bucky’s shoulders and fixing his gaze with his own.

“Buck, I know you,” he says, willing Bucky to see his conviction. “I trust you, and I know you can do this. You’re ready to do this, if you can just believe in yourself like I do.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, just stares back at him helplessly.

“I’m not asking you to become Captain America. I’m just asking you to help out once in a while.” Steve grins. “Besides, the only other person I think I might trust enough to ask is Sam, and then we’d never hear the end of it.”

Bucky snorts at that, and Steve dares to hope he might say yes. The smile fades.

“You really trust me to do this?” Bucky asks doubtfully. “After everything I’ve done?”

“I trust the man I knew seventy years ago. And I trust the man you are now, standing in front of me. That’s all that matters.”

Bucky jaw is set hard, eyes determined. Steve yelps in surprise when Bucky roughly pulls him into a firm embrace, clapping him hard on the back before practically shoving him away and quickly averting his gaze. Steve beams at him.

“Like you said,” Bucky says gruffly, looking back up at Steve. “Can’t have Birdbrain going around acting like he’s Abraham Lincoln with a Frisbee and wings.”

“It’s not a Frisbee,” Steve laughs.

“I won’t let you down,” Bucky says, voice thick. He clears his throat a little awkwardly before speaking again. “How about we go and see this kid of yours then?”

Steve nods rapidly, the seriousness of a few moments ago forgotten and replaced with unbearable nerves. He glances to Natasha, still firmly out for the count. He doesn’t really want to leave her, but excited anxiety gnaws at this stomach. The nurse seems like she’ll be there for a while longer, and the doctors are still close enough. Following Bucky out of the room after another glance back to Natasha, they head down the hallway to the Intensive Care Unit.

Steve spots him almost instantly through the window, stomach lurching. There, small and pink in one of those plastic baby units encasing him. His son. _Their_ son.

“Oh god,” he breathes. For a second it’s too much, but then he’s leaning over the unit and it’s _everything_ instead _,_ his whole world right there in front of him with tiny balled up fists and scrunched up eyes. He presses his hands up against the Perspex, vaguely aware that he can feel a couple of tears running down his cheeks. He doesn’t really care.

“Can I hold him?” he asks. God, he’s so perfect. More perfect than he ever imagined in his wildest dreams.

“Not yet I’m afraid,” someone says. “Maybe in a few hours, if everything is normal.” He manages to tear his gaze away to look up at the nurse standing a few feet away. “We’re still running some tests to be safe, but he does seem to be quite healthy, all things considered.”

Steve nods, turning back to the baby. It hurts, wanting to hold him so much and yet knowing he can’t. An ache in his chest the likes of which he’s never felt. It’s like fighting against instinct. He’s right there, close enough to touch but he can’t, not yet. They’ve come too far to make a mistake now. He just has to wait for the doctors to sign off all the tests and then he’ll be able to hold him all he wants. God, he never wants to let him out of his sight, can’t get enough of the fact that this is all real. Part of him has been convinced he’s been dreaming the last several months but here he is, perfect and beautiful.

“Can we move him? You know, into the room so when Natasha wakes up...”

“I don’t see why not,” the nurse says.

Steve nods. Large, green eyes look back at him now, curious. Natasha’s eyes. Steve’s pretty sure he’s going to collapse from the sheer magnitude of emotions coursing through him some time soon.

“Hey, little guy,” he whispers, amazed. The baby squeezes up his eyes again, squirming and kicking the air.

“So,” Bucky says from behind him. “Got a name yet, Daddio?”

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha opens her eyes carefully, squinting against the bright ceiling lights. Her mouth feels dry, though really the pain is a bigger concern right now, a throbbing ache from her head down to her toes, concentrated in the middle. Nevertheless, pain like this has always been something Natasha can ignore, if she has to. It had been one of her first lessons in the Red Room.

Looking to her side, her eyes land on Steve. Leaning back in a chair, his legs stretch out in front of him. He’s still wearing his uniform trousers and undershirt, though he looks like he’s cleaned up a bit since the last time she saw him. And there, cradled against his chest, a small bundle of blankets. She can see the top of a small head resting in the crook of his elbow. He looks so small and fragile against Steve’s massive frame. The Baby, and Steve looking at him like he was his entire universe all wrapped up in one tiny little form.

There was a time when Natasha wouldn’t have known what this feeling in her chest was. Like there’s something lodged there, but something that’s too big and is trying to burst out. Something that can’t be contained, that’s begging to be released, and the only thing that seems to help the strain is sharing it with someone else. She doesn’t think it can ever really be explained with reason. She had tried, at first. But it just _is_. It can’t be rationalised.

Love.

She had thought it impossible, once. But then she’s done a lot of impossible things lately. Like falling in love with Steve. Like having a baby with him. The strange part is, she can’t remember exactly when feeling like this had become normal, natural like breathing.

Pushing herself into a sitting position, she leans back against the pillows with a breath of relief. Even that tiny amount of effort seems to have exhausted her again. Steve is on his feet already.

“Nat, it’s okay, don’t force yourself-”

“-Is that him?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer. Steve nods, smiling broadly, stupidly.

“He’s so perfect,” he says excitedly. “You wanna hold him?”

 _Yes,_ Natasha think instantly. It surprises her a little, the intensity of it. She hadn’t really known how she would feel after the birth, because part of her had never expected them to get this far. Part of her had been too scared to think about it.

“I don’t…I don’t know how,” she admits. Steve adjusts the small bundle in his arms, bringing her arms up with one hand before somewhat awkwardly passing him over.

“Here, like this,” he says, as if it’s that simple. But after only a little shuffling, Natasha has the baby settled in her arms. It feels a little alien, but not in a bad way.

He really is perfect, Natasha decides as she looks at him. There’s a few wispy blonde hairs on his head, and the exchange hasn’t disturbed him at all, still sleeping soundly.

“He has your eyes,” Steve says proudly. Her eyes. His hair. Truly theirs, as if seeing him now confirms it. Steve kisses the top of her head. Natasha feels like the room is spinning around her.

“I know it’s scary. But I’m not going anywhere,” she hears him say next to her ear. “I love you so much.”

Natasha swallows thickly, too many emotions flooding through her to process. But his voice is reassuring, like it always is. It’ll be okay. She looks up at him and he smiles, eyes shiny with tears. As long as he’s with her, it’ll be okay.

“God, I never thought I could be this happy,” he admits quietly, holding her close. Natasha looks back to their son.

“Me neither,” she replies honestly.

She never would have imagined this in her wildest dreams. But she does know one thing.

But she wouldn't change it for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, first off, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for reading and commenting and driving me to continue this story ever since the first chapter of Close. Your support means the world to me and I am so glad you have taken the time to share this universe with me.  
> I'm not really sure how I feel about this chapter but I was at the point where I just wanted to publish something because I felt so bad about taking so long to update. So if it was a little rough around the edges, I apologize! My feelings about this chapter will probably change a hundred times ha ha :) I feel like it's kind of short in places but I felt like I was repeating myself the longer I tried to make it. Anywaaaayy.  
> I am so sorry I haven't been as regular with updating this as I wanted to be; life has thrown some unexpected and unwanted things at me the last 6 months or so. This story has been fun to write but also at times very difficult for me to write as some of it is very personal and brings up a lot of hard memories. But I am so glad to have shared this journey with you, and I look forward to sharing many more!!  
> I always have a backlog of oneshots to work through and also a bigger multichapter in the works which I can finally focus on now Closer is finished.  
> I do have some short "deleted scenes" in my head which I may add to this series/universe which have happened inbetween the existing chapters, let me know if any of you are interested in this?  
> Once again, thank you!! :) :) <3 <3 <3I hope you liked it!


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